Brae Hansen was a seventeen year old living in California when she plotted with her brother Nathan Gann would murder their stepfather Tim MacNeil
According to court documents Brae Hansen and Nathan Gann decided they had enough of their stepfather Tim MacNeil and plotted a way to kill him
Tim McNeil would be lured into the home and while Brae Hansen would hide in a bathroom Nathaniel Gann would corner McNeil and fatally shoot him
When officers would arrive at the scene the two siblings would tell a story about a robber breaking into the home and fatally shooting Tim McNeil
Brae Hansen would give a description to police regarding the mysterious robber and would later tell her family what the robber looked like even though she told police he was wearing a mask
Soon police would realize that Brae Hansen and Nathan Gann were making up the robber story and the two would be arrested and charged with murder
Nathaniel Gann would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty five years
Brae Hansen would also be convicted and sentenced to life without parole however she would later get a sentence reduction due to her age at the time of Tim McNeil murder.
Brae Hansen would have a parole hearing in 2025 and she would be denied release.
Where Is Brae Hansen Today
Brae Hansen is currently incarcerated at the California Institution For Women
Where Is Nathaniel Gann Today
Nathan Gann is not listed in the California Department of Corrections
Brae Hansen Current Information
Name
HANSEN, BRAE FRANCES
CDCR Number
X37693
Age
36
Current Location
California Institution for Women
Admission Date
Jul 08 2009
Commitment County
San Diego
Brae Hansen Case
Brae Hansen, the woman who organized the execution of her stepfather Tim MacNeil when she was 17, faced a parole board Tuesday and was denied freedom after more than 17 years in prison.
In a roughly four-hour parole hearing, Hansen said she was allegedly sexually abused by her brother Nathaniel Gann who also acted as her accomplice in the murder. Hansen detailed what led to MacNeil being shot four times just one day after his birthday and said she was motivated by greed and abandonment.
“I felt abandoned,” she said. “I was self-centered. I had low self-esteem. I felt like I wasn’t good enough to make it without financial backing and I was afraid of being poor.”
San Diego police found MacNeil dead inside of his Rolando home on July 19, 2007.
His stepdaughter Hansen had called 911.
When police arrived at the MacNeil home, the 17-year-old girl was hysterical, her wrists zip-tied. She told police she was forced to watch the man she called “Daddy” bleed out on the floor after a masked intruder shot him four times just one day after his birthday. After the masked man killed MacNeil, Hansen said, he ran out the back door.
It was all a lie. A ruse that police quickly saw through.
There was no masked intruder. Brae and her brother, Nathanial Gann, were behind the murder. She was arrested less than 12 hours later after she made several statements that exposed her lies to both detectives and family members.
Brae Hansen is 35 now and has been incarcerated for 17 years and five months.
Several of MacNeil’s family members who spoke at the parole hearing said it wasn’t long enough.
During the hearing, Hansen detailed alleged abuse from her mother, MacNeil and her brother. Hansen said everything she did as a child was all “a quest for attention.”
She said her mother, who committed suicide a year prior, was severely abusive and ran a “utilitarian” household. She described her mother as unstable, erratic and both physically and emotionally abusive.
Brae Hansen said both her mother and MacNeil, who came into her life when she was three years old, showed little to no emotion in the home and she felt “emotionally abandoned by him at a young age.”
Her brother and coconspirator was also abusive, according to Hansen. She detailed years of physical and sexual violence. Hansen said it started with teasing and hitting her — but soon morphed into molestation.
“I never got affirmation from him until he started to sexually molest me,” she said. “I felt like I was approved by him.”
But she still wanted him near despite the molestation she said, because he could carry the brunt of their mother’s abuse.
“I still preferred Nathan to be in the home because we split the abuse from my mother,” she said. “I allowed him to keep touching me and molesting me because it made me feel better when he was in the house
When MacNeil allegedly told her her couldn’t stop her mother from abusing her, Hansen ran away to live with Gann in Arizona, where Hansen said Gann tried to sexually assault her again but she prevented it by locking herself in the bathroom. She would stay for 8 months until her mother committed suicide.
Hansen came back to San Diego at MacNeil’s request, she said at the hearing.
Brae Hansen alleged MacNeil also became sexually inappropriate with her as she got older and would shower with her when she was 15 or 16 years old.
Hansen described the months leading up to MacNeil’s murder as “fully erratic.”
“I felt betrayed because I was not getting the attention from Tim that I felt he owed me after my mom’s death.”
Things came to a tipping point, she said, when MacNeil found out Hansen was involved in a hit and run. She said MacNeil told her she needed to find a new place to live and she was no longer his daughter. It prompted a phone call to her brother to figure out what her next move was and to “gain sympathy,” she said.
Who spoke the idea of murder into fruition first has been contested since 2007.
But at the hearing, Brae Hansen said she was on the phone with Gann when they started discussing how much money they would have when “Tim was no longer around.”
“Nathan made a statement like what if he was not around,” she questioned. “I jumped into it headfirst.”
She said her brother could have meant anything by this statement, but Hansen chose for it to mean murder.
“I didn’t value human life,” she said.
Thus the plot to hire a hitman was conceived. That soon fell through. but she said she still wanted to go on with the murder and admitted to lying about wanting to back out during the trial
She told Gann she would give him 15% of the inheritance since he’d been cut out previously and they were both motivated by greed. They would use their mother’s gun. The plan was to kill him on MacNeil’s birthday and Hansen had invited him to a lunch to celebrate.
“Nathan was downstairs waiting,” she said. “I let him go downstairs to his death. My role was to render him helpless and powerless and execute him.”
After MacNeil had gone downstairs, Hansen said her brother told her to zip tie MacNeil to make it look like a robbery. MacNeil told Gann he needed to go to the restroom and Gann accompanied. Hansen said she didn’t see what happened but heard a struggle and then the four shots.
When Parole Commissioner Infante asked how she felt after the murder, she said her sole focus was making sure she got away with it. She didn’t think his death would have a big impact on her.
“I was already desensitized to death from my mother’s death,” she said. “I felt like I would feel the same with Tim’s death. I felt emotionally abandoned by him already. If I could not use him for my purposes then he had no value to me.”
She also admitted to planning her mother’s murder at age 13. She wanted to poison her, she said. Hansen’s mother killed herself by overdosing on pills the year prior to MacNeil’s murder.
When Infante asked what harm her crime has caused, she mentioned the “trauma and nightmares” his family must face.
But she never mentioned her primary victim.
Parole Commissioner Teresa Meghan tried to give her an opportunity to correct herself on this.
“I didn’t hear you mention Tim MacNeil in your list of victims,” she said. “That should be number one on the list. If you missed someone just say you missed it.”
She said she was preoccupied by looking at all the people on the call, including MacNeil’s daughter Erin MacNeil Ellison, his sister-in-law Bonnie MacNeil, his niece Shelly MacNeil and his former girlfriend Kim Bieda.
Several loved ones and also the District Attorney’s office urged the board to not allow her release.
Deputy District Attorney Dino Paraskevopoulos said while she’s made improvements on herself while incarcerated, she still failed to acknowledge the key factors that lead to her execution plan.
“The greed factor wasn’t even mentioned by her,” Paraskevopoulos said. “That greed is still here. It hasn’t been addressed. We would also argue that her empathy is lacking. When asked who her victims were, she didn’t even mention Mr. MacNeil. That’s incredulous.
Paraskevopoulos adds,
“She’s manipulating and being deceptive to the board. We understand she gets the youthful parole factors but those are outweighed by the planning and sophistication of this crime.”
MacNeil Ellison, Mr. MacNeil’s daughter, said the family felt some peace when Hansen was originally sentenced to life without parole. But that serenity was stripped away with the law change that made Hansen eligible for parole.
“Now I live a life that is shrouded by the fear that she can one day be released,” she said.
Mr. MacNeil’s sister in law Bonnie MacNeil said Hansen lied during the parole hearing. She said Mr. MacNeil “bragged on her constantly.” No apology or letter will take away the fear Bonnie MacNeil has of Hansen one day being free.
“I am absolutely terrified she is going to show up and stand in my kitchen one day,” she said. “I don’t want an apology letter. I don’t want anything.”
When the board announced she was denied parole, Commissioner Gilbert pointed out the critical mistake she made.
“Not listing that direct victim, this is the reason you are in prison,” he said.
Brae Hansen’s next scheduled parole hearing is in three years.
Why did a parole hearing come so early?
New state and federal laws governing prison sentences for juveniles, however, have changed since Hansen was sentenced, making her eligible for parole after serving less than 18 years.
When Brae Hansen was originally sentenced, parole wasn’t an option. A jury found her guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances of lying in wait. The judge sentenced her to life in prison without parole.
However, in 2015, Hansen’s sentence was reduced to 26 years to life. The law had changed roughly three years after her initial sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 found that mandatory life sentences without parole for people who were minors when they committed the crime violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The California Supreme Court also said in 2014 that while 16- and 17-year-olds can be sentenced to life without parole, it must be discretionary, and the trial judge must consider the person’s youth.
