Cops: Lesbian Couple Plotted Parents' Murders

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Tina Loesch, 36, is suspected of helping Brad Steckman kill her mother in Post Falls, Idaho, in 1998.

Post Falls, Idaho cops say that when Tina Loesch met Skye Hanson in prison, a shared love for a life of crime may have brought them together as a couple. Loesch was doing time for theft, forgery and stealing a car; Hanson was in for dealing drugs.

Upon their release, they moved in together and Loesch’s young son, Kristopher, lived with them part-time. However, Loesch’s parents, particularly her father, Gary Loesch, hated the idea of his daughter living life as a gay woman and didn’t hide his feelings about the subject, writing her out of his will.

The family’s turmoil boiled over when Gary was murdered while working his morning paper route in November 1995 -- cops say he was shot in the head, and despite a few clues, the case went unsolved.

After Gary’s murder, his wife, Barbara, sought to close the rift with Loesch. In the months that followed, they became closer, but police say that may have just been part of the plan.

On January 8, 1998, authorities say Loesch showed up on her mother's doorstep. Loesch also had a friend in tow, a man named Bradley Steckman.

Cops say what happened next was truly diabolical: as Barbara was resting in an outdoor hot tub, Steckman “tripped” and dropped a TV set that had been tweaked to deliver the maximum amperage into the water.

But to make sure that Barbara was truly dead, Steckman told cops that he and Loesch held Barbara’s head underwater for two minutes.

Steckman later confessed that when they fled the scene, Loesch was hysterical -- crying and vomiting.

Hours later, police say, Loesch's partner Skye Hanson went back to Barbara Loesch’s home to make sure the job had been done right. Steckman said he was to be paid $10,000 for his role in the murder plot, small change when cops discovered that the payout was a $525,000 life insurance policy that Tina had taken out on her mom and made herself the beneficiary.  

The insurance company initially called Barbara Loesch’s death an accident, and paid the hefty sum to Tina Loesch. Loesch and Hanson lived in the area until 2001, when they were last seen loading up an RV in Seattle. They then disappeared along with Loesch’s son, Kristopher.
 

A Shocking Jailhouse Admission

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Tina Loesch's son, Kristopher, before their disappearance in 2001.

In 2001, Brad Steckman was convicted of murdering Dorothy Martin, an 89-year-old woman he killed while robbing her in her home.

Authorities later discovered evidence from the Martin murder case at the Clarkston, Wash. home that Hanson and Loesch once shared.  Furthermore, cops discovered another interesting clue: Skye Hanson had once done home repair work for Dorothy Martin.

To further cement cops' suspicions, Steckman ultimately spilled the beans on his role in the Barbara Loesch case from behind bars, admitting to engineering the TV to deliver the near-fatal jolt, dropping the set into the hot tub, and drowning Barbara Loesch.

More importantly, he told cops that Loesch and Hanson hired him to help them execute their plan. However, one new development was Steckman’s account of another murder: that of Bill Loesch’s unsolved shooting.

Steckman claims that he helped Loesch and Hanson plan the deadly scheme -- even scoping out Bill’s daily paper route with Hanson -- but swears he didn’t fire the fatal shot.

Steckman is serving 18 years in prison for the murders of Dorothy Martin and Barbara Loesch.

He will be eligible for parole in 2016.

For ten years, cops sought Loesch and Hanson as persons-of-interest, but now, first-degree murder warrants have been issued for the couple.

Police believe that Hanson and Loesch may have fled to the Cayman Islands or Belize, but could also be in Hawaii.

Skye Hanson is a race car enthusiast and loves Corvettes; her dark green Corvette with the license plate SKYE1 is still unaccounted for.

Hanson may have gained a significant amount of weight and also collects tropical fish. Prior to her life on the lam, she flipped houses and had a home repair business.

Tina Loesch would be 36 years old today, and her missing son, Kristopher, would be 18. Loesch has red hair but may dye it blonde, and sometimes uses the alias Tina Kessler.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Tina Loesch or Skye Hanson, please call our hotline at 1-800-CRIME-TV.

Wanted For:

• Murder , Post Falls , ID ; Jan 11, 1998

(Information valid as of November 19, 2008)

Associated Persons:

Skye Hanson
Fugitive
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Television Airings:

• »December 13, 2008
• »November 15, 2008

Murder Suspects Killed In Suicide Pact

Cops are currently on the lookout for Kristopher Loesch, son of deceased murder suspect Tina Loesch, who went missing in 2000. Kristopher, seen here in an age-enhanced photo provided by NCMEC, would be 18-years-old.
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For years, Tina Loesch and Skye Hanson had been on the run, but their life on the lam ended only a few hours after AMW aired their story. 

Less than two hours after the AMW broadcast of November 15, 2008, three people discovered a Dodge Durango left in a rural area of northwest Tucson, Ariz. 

The SUV the women were found in was registered to a female friend whose ex-husband lived in Post Falls, Idaho. 

Inside were the bodies of two women -- one of whom was in the back seat and was carrying Tina Loesch's ID.  The other woman resembled Skye Hanson and was found in the front seat.  Both women had been shot in the head and 2 guns were found in the vehicle. 

"Although we never want or expect this result when we profile fugitives on the program, it is our experience that accused criminals who we do profile, have made some bad choices in life," said AMW's Avery Mann. "In the situation of Loesch and Hanson, it appears that more bad decisions were made by them."

Police are calling the deaths a suicide pact, and have mentioned an eight-page suicide note left at the crime scene. 

In the note, cops say Tina, who penned the letter, blames hitman Bradley Steckman for the murder of her mother.  She also talks about her love for Skye. 

Initially, police were investigating the possibility of a double homicide, but now believe that Tina Loesch shot Skye Hanson before turning the gun on herself. 

An autopsy conducted on Nov. 17, 2008 first confirmed Tina Loesch as one of the deceased females in the car. Skye Hanson’s autopsy took a considerable time longer due to the fact that her fingerprint analysis was inconclusive at first. She was positively identified later in the afternoon. 

Authorities are still on the lookout for Kristopher Loesch, Tina's teenage son.  Kristopher would be 18-years-old now but police believe that he most likely never lived in the Three Points area of Tucson where Tina and Skye settled roughly 8 years ago.  Authorities say Tina and Skye were running a home repair or home maintenance business.  AMW tipsters claimed that Skye's infamous Corvette was parked in their garage. 

Despite an exhastive search of the women's residence, police say that there was no sign of Kristopher or any personal affects that would suggest he had once lived there.  Currently, the search for Kristopher Loesch remains the focal point of the investigation.