How Brittani Marcell Was Attacked With a Shovel, Then Helped Catch Her Attacker Years Later!
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Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. So today's case is really, really interesting. I know I say that all the time, but this one is just fascinating to me. There's a lot to cover here, so let's go ahead and just jump right in. So this whole case takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Brittany Marcel was living there with her mother and her six other siblings. That's right, they had seven kids in their family. And her mom was actually a single mom, so that was pretty difficult for her to have seven kids, but she was a great mom. She was really attentive. Their upbringing was pretty good. They lived in a really nice neighborhood. Brittany is known to have a great personality, was really friendly. She was known to be a very positive,

and she had a bunch of big dreams for her life. Eventually she wanted to go into TV journalism and be a newscaster of some sort. At this time in her life, she was a high school senior. She was doing really well in school and was planning to go to college. She was currently working at a job at a sunglass kind of stall kiosk thing at the mall.

You know where you try to walk by really fast but they always come up to you and try to sell you sunglasses? One of those. And she was really good at it because she was, you know, really social, she enjoyed people, she would strike up conversations with them and get them to buy two, three, even four pairs of sunglasses sometimes. And all was well in their life until September 11th, 2008.

This was a completely normal day for them. Brittany had school, her mom had work. That day Brittany and Diane decided that they were actually gonna meet up for lunch together. This is something they did every so often, but it was just a spur of the moment plan. It was a Thursday morning and they just were like, "Let's go ahead and meet up for lunch today." But instead of going out, they decided to just meet up at the house. So Brittany went to school that morning. She had a normal half day at school and then came home for her lunch to meet her mom there.

On her way there, she called her mom and just checked in and told her she was headed there. Diane said that when she was on the phone, she acted completely normal, didn't seem scared or worried about anything. So Brittany went home for lunch to meet her mom. She went into the house when she got there. Diane did the same. And when she pulled up and went into her house, she was shocked by what she found. She found Brittany on the floor covered in blood. She had dropped all of her belongings, books, everything was around her spread out. So it happened as soon as she walked into the house. She looked like she had been bruised

badly beaten. She was swollen and kind of disfigured already. The swelling starts to happen quick. And there was a man next to her just holding a shovel. And Diane said this was not someone that she recognized. She got a look at him because he wasn't wearing a mask or anything like that, but it wasn't someone she knew. So she obviously starts freaking out and the guy actually drops the shovel, runs into the kitchen and grabs a butcher knife.

And then he started coming at Diane saying, you're next. And in that moment, you know, I can't imagine what it would be like as a mom to have to decide to leave your daughter who's beaten on the ground, but she decides to run, which was the smartest thing to do for sure. She goes over to a neighbor's house and calls 911 immediately. What is your name? Diane Marcell.

So Diane decides to go back over to the house, which is really scary because she doesn't know if the guy's still there, but he actually had fled the scene. She's breathing, but moaning. She's going to lose consciousness. Please. There's blood everywhere.

So she went over there and discovered Brittany was in terrible condition, was bleeding everywhere, totally swollen and disfigured, but she was still alive. She was just unconscious. They load Brittany up and send her to the hospital. And at this point, you know, they have no idea if she's going to survive. So police came to the crime scene and right off the bat, they felt like this was not any type of burglary or home invasion because there was nothing stolen or messed with. The person solely came in to attack Brittany.

Brittany. They figured it had to be some type of personal attack. Someone who was stalking Brittany. Was someone following her, waiting for her to come home to attack her specifically? Is it someone she knows? It is weird because Diane, you know, made eye contact with him. She said his face is like seared into her

but she did not know who he was. Investigators also believe that this guy left the house pretty much as soon as Diane ran out to get help. He probably realized the police would be coming shortly, so he needed to get out of that house fast. So instead of going through the door, he breaks a window and climbs out of that. And there's glass all over the house.

all over the outside of the house where the window was. And as he was going out, he cuts himself and gets this perfect drop of blood onto a piece of glass and leaves it there. It's almost like a lab sample. Like it was just made for the police. - A lot of police cars around and the crime lab.

truck was here. And then they told me what had happened, that she had been hit with a shovel and they didn't expect her to live. It was really bad. - Extremely shocked. They're a wonderful, clean cut, decent family. - So having DNA, having blood is a huge help to the police, obviously, but they still did not have an idea of who this could be because the family had no guesses about who it could be at first.

It's not like everyone's DNA is in a database. There were no matches coming up for this drop of blood. So a few days after the attack, Brittany was still in terrible condition in the hospital. She had multiple skull fractures, lacerations on her head and her

She had a broken arm and a broken wrist and a lot of people around her doctors family friends felt like she may not make it they figured out that she had clearly tried to fight back because she had all these bruises and scratches on her wrists trying to

herself and doctors were really concerned because her pupils were fixed in one size and she had really minimal brain activity so they started saying she had a low chance of survival. At this point they decided it would be best for her to be put into an induced coma for two weeks but when she came out of the coma she had no recollection of the attack or what happened to her at

She says that at first she thought she had been in a car accident. It was really hard for her to find out that she had actually been beaten with a shovel inside of her house. I mean, how scary to wait

wake up and be told something like that. So Brittany's recovery lasted years. In fact, she's still in recovery. She's not 100% back to normal. She's required so many surgeries. At first they had 16 different surgeries. And in one of the earlier surgeries, they actually had to take out like about a nickel size part of her brain. She also had a fractured part of her skull and this is crazy, but they took that fractured piece and they put it inside her abdomen.

sewed it back up and let it stay in there and heal for a little while. And in the meantime, she was wearing this helmet thing to kind of protect her head. And then eventually when the fractured part of her skull healed up, they took it out of her abdomen and placed it back on her skull. Is that not the most amazing thing?

with a lot of help and a lot of work on Brittany's part. She eventually did learn how to speak, how to walk, how to eat again. She definitely wasn't 100% back to herself. She had a ton of memory loss, but she was living a life that was worthwhile again. But one thing that she was really suffering from still was the memory loss. The doctors didn't know if it could be long-term, if it was short-term, if it would ever come back.

back. Memory is a tricky thing. You know, we still don't completely understand how it works. They told the family that maybe she could regain some of her memory, but to not have too high of hopes. Brittany was struggling to remember pretty much anything, even close relationships she'd had in the years leading up to this attack. Brittany lived but had severe brain damage. She couldn't remember anything about her attacker. She missed her senior year at Cibola High School, so her class voted her homecoming queen.

The family decided to move out of that house. They never wanted to go back into it, actually. There was just too many bad memories from that attack. And her mom, in her spare time when she wasn't caring for her daughter, she started really putting pressure on the investigators and trying to get this case solved. We don't know who he is. We don't know where he's at. We don't know a real live picture of what he looks like.

Is he still in New Mexico? We don't know. Is he out of the state? Is he out of the country? We don't know. So when this all first happened, investigators started asking Diane if there was anyone she thought may want to hurt Brittany, if she could think of anyone that may want to do this. And eventually one of her other daughters brought up that maybe it's her biological father. He had not been a good father to his kids. They remembered several times where he was aggressive with them and

they had a horrible nasty divorce wasn't just bitter he was violent i got out of a marriage because of domestic violence as a kid i i distinctly remember that and

And it was something you shouldn't remember. So Diane started thinking, maybe he sent someone, like a murder for hire plot, to the house to kill me. And they just got confused and they tried to kill Brittany instead. They weren't sure about this. It was just, you know, a random shot in the dark because they really had no other possibilities. But after investigators spent some time looking into him and talking with him, they were able to clear him as a suspect.

So more time had gone on and Diane was still really frustrated with the lack of progress that they were seeing. And the police kept on telling her, you know, maybe as time goes on, your daughter's memory will improve and maybe she will be able to give us more of a lead. But her memory was coming back really slowly and she specifically could not remember

anything about the attack which is not surprising because even if you don't suffer from memory loss in an attack being attacked like that with a shovel could be such a traumatic experience that your memory will actually block it out so you can't remember it at all so police just felt like unless those memories come back you know there's not much we can do with a single drop of

Now like I mentioned earlier, that drop of blood when put into the database did not bring up anybody. They started just calling it John Doe. Now Diane gave her own description to the police and here's what she said. She described him as a Caucasian or Hispanic male, approximately 20 to 30 years old, 5 foot 7 inches tall, clean shaven with brown hair. And this along with a description of the attacker and what happened was released to the public.

They got a few leads from this, but nothing panned out. In 2010, the case was featured on America's Most Wanted, which brought in some more leads. The mysterious man who attacked and almost killed an Albuquerque teenager inside her own home is still on the loose tonight, more than a year after the attack. Today, America's Most Wanted tried to bring the search to an end. Believe me, I know it's the worst nightmare any parent can live through. Now she's living with her family in Texas, still recovering from the attack that almost killed her.

I'm glad that I don't remember it all, but there are some parts that I wish I remembered as to who he is and why it was my house. But again, none of those leads panned out. And then in August of 2013, the family got really lucky because they were assigned to a new detective who is just awesome. Her name is Jody Gaunterman and she's just very passionate about her job. So when she first started working with Brittany, she would try to have her come up with any names that she could think of from her past that possibly could have done something.

And they went through each of those names, found each person and somehow cleared them. This was taking a ton of time, just slowly ruling out every single person that she can remember. So eventually Jodi was like, well, how about we try hypnosis? And this is why this case is so fascinating to me because I am very interested in hypnosis. Hypnosis does not always work, but when it does, it's pretty interesting what can be recalled.

Brittany wanted to try it, so they brought her in to a hypnotherapist and they were actually worried that at first maybe she wasn't going to be able to get any memories back because her brain was so damaged. I mean, it was physically beaten with a shovel, but they thought, you know, if she is repressing these memories because of trauma and not because of physical trauma, then maybe they are retrievable.

Her hypnosis session was actually filmed, which is really cool. And before they even put her under hypnosis, they were talking to her just about her life before this happened, trying to see what she could naturally remember. And she did remember the fact that she was going to be going to college to study journalism and remembered that her grade point average was around a 3.6 to a 3.78.

So they felt like, you know, maybe she has some hope here. So then they put her into hypnosis. And then she actually relived the attack right there in front of the hypnotherapist. This is the moment Brittany begins shaking as she relives the attack. Tell me what's happening. It's... it's... hurting. How? Like a stick or something like that. I'm bleeding.

She left the session remembering a bunch and being super overwhelmed, but she didn't have a specific person. And then she went home to rest for a few days. And then after a few days, she remembered even more.

She eventually came up with a specific description of the person. She believed it was someone with very light skin, a Hispanic male with black spiky hair, a square face, big nose, and weird eyes. She specifically said that his eyes were brown. She said he had prominent eyebrows, big ears, a big forehead, and no visible tattoos, and that he was wearing a t-shirt when it happened.

So another composite sketch was put together and released to the public. So then in 2016, you know, years after the attack, they had interviewed tons of persons of interest, but they still were not giving up. But Detective Gonterman felt like, you know, they really weren't making much progress. And this is when she learned about snapshot, which is something I've talked about in a couple videos now. It's really, really cool technology where they can take a sample of someone's DNA and create a physical snapshot or picture of what they put

possibly look like or probably look like. They would take a DNA profile and they would give us hair color, eye color, ancestry, and then they do a 3D computer generated image of what your suspect's going to look like. She decided this could be useful. So she sent in DNA from that blood sample and had it made into a snapshot. It takes a little while for the snapshot to be put together. So while she was waiting, she had another interview with Brittany and tried to recall more information.

from her and it was then that Brittany had a more specific memory. For some reason the name Justin Hansen came up for her. Brittany was feeling extremely foggy about why Justin Hansen's name was coming up but she suddenly remembered him from her past and said that she remembered seeing him shortly before this all had happened. So who is Justin Hansen? He is seven years older than Brittany and

And Brittany said that she remembers meeting him when she was friends with this girl named Abby. It was like middle school and they would play together and be over at Abby's house. And at the same time, her older sister, Lauren had just gotten pregnant by this guy named Justin Hanson. So Justin Hanson was just hanging out at the house all the time. - Whenever I went to Abby's house or so, he would be over with Lauren. - But after a while, her friendship had fizzled with Abby. So she didn't really see her anymore.

but she still saw Justin Hansen and she would randomly run into him at places and he would always say hi. And then specifically, she remembered him coming to say hi to her when she was working at that sunglasses booth a couple of times. They actually found out that he did three or four times before the attack happened. - Do you remember any of the conversations that you had with Justin?

They were just like, hey, how was your day? How was school? What are you doing later? You know, like a regular talk you have with anybody. So they're starting to feel kind of weird about him. You know, they're putting him on the back burner.

And then the snapshot image came back and it looks so much like Justin Hansen. It's insane. The only thing that was weird was the sketch said that whoever did this had a high likelihood of having green or hazel eyes. And if you remember, Brittany said that she remembered the eyes being brown. Remember those eyes though, it had to have been

But Justin has green eyes, which is an extremely rare eye color. So it's like, what are the chances he would match up with this? So they go find Justin Hansen and it turns out that now he is a father. He has three kids and on the surface, he comes across as a loving dad. He had no criminal record. So investigators were kind of confused about this. You know, why? Why would he want anything to do with Britney?

What's the connection? It's not like it was her ex-boyfriend. What would be his motive? And would he be the type of person who would want to do something like this? So detectives went and actually talked to him outside of his house and he was just chilling in a robe and they filmed the whole thing. They said that he was really nice talking to them, very open about everything, expressing sadness for Brittany Marcel, was happy to talk to them about any questions that they had. And they said they were having a great conversation with him.

until they asked him to submit a DNA sample. It was then that he decided he wanted to talk to a lawyer first. Can I think about this and then come back and see you? If you know 100% that you were never even in that house, there's no way that it's going to match any of the

Can I get your card though and come back to you? You know, just so I think about everything and talk to my mom. Not only a lawyer, he wanted to talk to his mom. This really stuck out to investigators because before this they had asked a bunch of different people for their DNA in regards to this case and every single person had offered it up. Justin Hansen was the first person to deny them. And then at the end of the interview, he's walking them out of the house and they're standing in the front door area. And this is when they tell him, you know, we actually had a,

Snapshot made of you and it looks exactly like you we have some new evidence of 3d composite And it does resemble you and I would rather do this now before I put that out on the news. Yeah media I guess it just give me give me a day or so talk to my mom everything else I got your I got your number. I'll give you cool. All right back He really seems to be kind of a mama's boy his mom defends him about absolutely everything She immediately said there's no way he could have done this. There's no way he could have been involved in this

Justin is very friendly. He can start a conversation with a rattlesnake. He asked me, should I be worried? I told him, I don't know. Were you involved at all? And he's like, no. And I said, then you don't have to be worried. And I know my son has never had a violent history. And after talking to her, investigators are even more confused. You know, he doesn't have a record. He seems like this great guy. Why would he do this? But after digging a little more into his past, I did find some red flags. Years before this, he was actually accused of rape by his ex-girlfriend.

but she actually withdrew the charges and continued dating him for a little while longer. So that whole situation was kind of brushed under the rug. So at this point, all investigators can do is somehow obtain his DNA and try to get a match. So detectives actually followed him to a fast food restaurant and he was drinking out of a cup. After he was done with it, he gets up, throws it out. They follow him, get it out of the trash and there you go. They have their DNA. It took a couple of days for the DNA to come back.

but when it did, it showed that Justin was a match for that blood sample left at the house. Here's a video of Brittany actually finding out herself. - He called me today and we have a match. - Really? - Yes, we do.

No way. So in July of 2017, detectives decided they were going to arrest Justin Hansen. And this is nine years after Brittany was first beaten with that shovel. So to arrest him, they followed him. He went to the gym and then went to his kid's school, picked them up, and then they headed to the grocery store. And that's where they arrested him in the parking lot. You're wanted for some stuff. Okay.

I didn't do anything wrong. Almost a decade of mystery came down to this moment. 33-year-old Justin Hansen captured in the Los Lunas Albertsons parking lot Wednesday night. He tried to console his three kids with him in a shopping cart. Meanwhile, a witness says she once saw Hansen spend more than an hour talking to Marcel. And a friend of Hansen's told APD he always had a thing for young women. Am I scared of s***?

Hansen played ignorant with officers as they cuffed him. But AP investigators are sure this is the guy they've been looking for all along, bringing a sigh of relief to Marcel and her family. And he says that even though some of her early recollections of the attack may have been inaccurate, today she says she remembers the whole thing. I unlocked the screen door and I heard that big jolt on the back of my head.

And I turn around like, Justin, like, why Justin? Why? No explanation. So you actually remember saying Justin, why? I remember that distinctly. Justin said he was innocent and to this day he maintains that he is innocent, but blood

Blood evidence is pretty hard to deny. So they brought him in and told him that he was facing charges for murder and facing up to 50 years in prison. And they started showing him photos of her in the interrogation room saying, you know, you did this to her. - You feeling okay today? - No. - Look at her, Justin.

You did this to her. I didn't do that. You did this to her. I didn't do that. You can deny it all you want. I know it's you now. I'm not asking. I'm telling you it's you. After a while, he was actually let out on bail, which her family was not happy about. But it was pretty short-lived. His biggest supporter is definitely his mother. She is convinced that he did not do this, that he is being framed for this. I feel for the Marcells. I couldn't imagine being in that position. I know that Brittany suffered a lot.

a lot. I would think that they would want to be 100% sure that the person they're sending to jail is the person who beat their daughter.

And there's no evidence putting him in that house. - And her biggest defense is that there was no blood found actually in the house. It was found outside on the broken glass. It just doesn't make any sense. Why is his blood there? Why? It's not like he used to hang out there all the time and they were friends and could have had other reasons for his blood to be there, but this is just too perfect. So in April of 2008,

Justin Hansen actually pleaded no contest to attempted murder in aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon. This avoids the risk of a trial while ensuring that Hansen serves time. The way my lawyer explained it to me is no contest isn't a guilty plea. It's just, it's basically saying that you understand that there is a chance if you took it to trial that you could be found guilty. But afterwards, once you get out of prison, you're going to be a felon, which means essentially...

It's a guilty plea. You don't believe that you are guilty. No, I know I'm not guilty. I don't have to believe it. I know I'm not guilty. I'm most concerned about not being there for my kids. You know, I love them to death. And so thinking about not seeing them...

And not being there for them. Wait for me. Teach them wrong from right. I love you guys. It's scary. Brittany spoke during the hearing and talked about how devastating this was on her life. On September 11th, my dreams and goals were beaten out of me. Today in court, Brittany Marcel recalled her near-death experience 10 years ago. But he did take my life from me. Today, the judge heard emotional testimony from Brittany's family.

It was the day I lost my Brittany. Justin Hansen also spoke at the hearing and without admitting that he was guilty, said that he was sorry to Brittany. And then in July of 2018, he was actually sentenced to 18 years in prison. I am going to impose the full 18 years in the Department of Correction. Brittany? Brittany?

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Justin Hansen is serving an 18-year prison sentence for the brutal shovel beating of a Cibola High School student. I could see it coming, didn't know it was coming. It was November 26th. Justin Hansen had only been at this Las Cruces prison for a week when an inmate attacked him. You can see here an inmate takes a swing at Hansen's head.

The two moved to the ground and an older inmate tries to pull off the attacker, but then stops. You can see an inmate tell him to back off or he would be next. After the attack, Hansen was left with bad injuries to his face

State police report they say through other inmate interviews the attack stemmed from Hansen's quote high profile case. They think that it was someone who was angry at him because of this crime. So I think that person was just trying to give him a little taste of his own medicine. His ex-girlfriend has also spoken about how he was a horrible father to his first child. That he was abusive to her and has just done all these bad things. Stolen and stolen.

has done all these different crimes that haven't been reported to the police because his mom has basically protected him. He almost killed Brittany. I mean, I think he wanted to kill her and he ruined her life. I mean, luckily she's very grateful to be where she's at, but obviously it's not ideal. No one wants to go through something like this. And it's just been a huge setback for

Brittany. She may never be 100% back to normal again. And he took that from her. So I believe he deserves those 18 years in prison. I honestly wish he got a lot more than that. It's just so brutal to beat someone with a shovel, like, and then right in front of their mother. And he was going to kill Diane too. I'm sure he would have if she didn't run out of the house and people point out, well, he has no criminal record. He seems like this great guy. It's like, yeah,

because he knew they had blood evidence at the crime scene. And if he got in trouble for anything else or his DNA was put into the system for anything else, they would instantly figure out it was him. So I think he was just laying really, really low. I think Brittany is really, really strong. I think she's very inspiring. Her positivity is totally contagious.

It's amazing to me that people can go through things like that and come out so strong. I'm so happy that her mother and her have justice now for this whole experience they've been through. The whole family has just been so stressed out over finding this person. The fact that he was still out there for so long was very scary.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.