Not Your Toy, Not Your Victim.

There are many sides to each tragedy, and some of them are harder to tell than others.

Of course, when it comes to violence, one of the most important points to keep in mind is that these horrors happened to a real person, a son, a daughter, a mom, a sibling. These victims and survivors had their entire lives changed or ended because of the actions of another.

Understanding the mindset of the perpetrator is deeply fascinating, it’s something I’ve always been interested by, especially the extreme violence and cruelty of serial killers.

However, the origin of my deep, abiding love for the darker side of humanity comes from a deeply personal event that shattered my family when I turned 4.

To quote Bane, from Batman and at the same time bastardizing the quote, I was born in the darkness of humanity, molded by it!

But before I get too lost in this introduction, allow me to tell you the story of my Aunt, Lynn Henneman.

Lynn was a beautiful woman who was born in Bozeman, Montana, and went where the wind would take her. From what my mother has told me, she was someone who followed her heart, even if her parents didn’t agree with it.

My only memory of my Aunt was a time when we visited her house and she attempted to teach me how to make paper airplanes. I was terrible at this activity and just ended up making a bunch of paper balls to throw at people instead.

We had oysters and mussels, which was my first memory of truly hating a food. I was a picky eater, to be sure, but even to this day I really cannot eat those because of the texture!

I cherish those faded memories, the flashes of frustration that my paper wasn’t folding as nicely as everyone else, and the laughter of my aunt. It all feels worlds away, and while I will never forget those moments, I know they are a pale shadow of the original memory and they show a fragment of who this woman was.

She was opinionated and loving, a caring sister and daughter, she was an air stewardess who loved John Denver music and lived a unique life that was only just beginning.

In the beginning of September, 2000, Lynn was in Boise, Idaho for the night. This was a common stop on her flight route, so after she checked into her hotel, she began to wander the area.

We know she went to an art museum at some point and picked up glitter pens and window paints, likely for us, her nieces and nephews, and she stopped at a restaurant across the river from her hotel.

These steps are all that have been able to be verified, as our knowledge of Lynn’s last day remains somewhat unknown

What we do know, however, is that at some point, while Lynn was walking across the bridge separating the restaurant from her hotel, a figure leapt from the bushes, grabbed her, and pulled her back into the brush with him.

Lynn was then raped and strangled with her own pink sweater, a fact that particularly haunted my mother as she processed her grief.

To the rest of the world, Lynn disappeared that night and the police were notified the next day when she did not show up for work.

I have done some research into the court records and what was done during the time between her disappearance and the discovery of her body, however, I didn’t care about those details at the time. All I knew was that my mother was hurting.

She left her four kids with friends and family, before she and my father travelled the 8 hours from Idaho Falls to Boise, Idaho to help search for her.

They looked everywhere they could think, even searching under the bridge where she faced her last moments.

Hauntingly, as my mother searched under the area filled with a desperate hope, she came within 20 feet of where her sister would later be found, stuck under a log in the river.

Having a family member go missing is a type of hell that does not relent. Every moment is a painful blend of hope, fear, and mourning that you cannot give into, because then you may lose an opportunity to find the loved one.

I cannot imagine how horrible it would be to lose someone you love long term and simply never know what happened to them.

Because while the discovery of my aunt’s body was devastating to our whole family, it also brought closure as well. We no longer needed to go out and look, there was no more fear that she was in pain… She was gone, but at least she was at peace.

After that, it is the work of the living to keep moving.

As I stated, I had just turned 4 when my aunt when missing and was subsequently discovered by fishers on the river. This case has been a fact of life since I could remember, so I can honestly say that my Aunt’s death affected me in different ways then it did my older family members.

Sure, I understood the concept of death, but the practical application?

To me, the most impactful memory I have from this time is going down to the kitchen almost every night with a fistful of tissues because I could hear my mom sobbing.

I wish I could tell you that our family came together to cope with the trauma that was a part of our lives, and that, as a family, we were able to strengthen our bonds and whatnot.

No, instead, my sister feels that this is the point when my pedophilic asshole of a father began to abuse her.

My mother had largely shut down, especially in her intimacy with my dad, so perhaps he felt jilted and went to take his frustration out on the next best person. This isn’t said to blame my mom, but rather to highlight how pathetic my father was.

He needed sex and intimacy so badly, that instead of supporting my mom, he went to his daughter to fill his needs. What a selfish asshat.

But back to the timeline.

Lynn Henneman’s killer was finally identified around 3 years after her death. The pathetic man who took my aunt’s life and affected so many others, Erick Virgil Hall.

The police had identified him around three years after he murdered Lynn, and while to me, he was a monster who would never leave prison, my sister remembers a time where Erick Hall was the boogey man. She was terrified that he would hunt our family down to finish the job, which is a very valid fear as a young preteen.

I know less about his life than I would like to admit, but he did have a terrible childhood, his mom whipped him with electrical cords and there were other abusive things happening.

Perhaps one day I will look more into his history, but everything I learned about him was filtered through my mother after the trial.

Erick was arrested in connection with a completely different murder, that of Cheryl Ann Hanlon, whose murder had multiple similarities to that of Lynn Henneman.

 There was evidence that she had been beaten about the head, raped, and then strangled with her own clothing. Jewelry had been taken in both instances, and there was some attempt to hide the body.

Lynn had been thrown into the river, while Cheryl was crudely concealed in a shallow grave.

I abhor the fact that two women had to die for this asshole to be given the justice he so richly deserved. He was a sex offender that potentially killed one other woman and absolutely attempted to kill another.

This brave hero of a survivor testified against Hall during his 2004 trial for Lynn’s murder.

My mom attended all three weeks of the trial, and dad attended two of those with her, so we were sent off to stay with family and friends once more.

From what she has told me, sitting through the trial was incredibly painful, she looked away for most of the crime scene photos, and those that she did glance at still gives her nightmares now, over two decades later.

In the end, Erick Hall was given a guilty verdict for the murder of both women and sentenced to multiple death sentences. Over the years, he has frequently filed appeals, which have been denied.

On February 9, 2026, Hall died of natural causes, I believe it was a stroke, but he is dead.

Both of the evillest men I’ve known in my life are dead, which is certainly cause for celebration.