Son Held in Father’s Day Killing of Emmy-Winning TV Engineer

The 15-year-old runaway son of an Emmy-award winning television sound engineer has been arrested on suspicion of shooting his adopted father to death on Father’s Day, police said Tuesday.

Police discovered the body of Gayle Hansen, 51, on his family room floor in Cypress Monday afternoon, four hours after both his sister and his girlfriend reported him missing. Hansen, an ABC television employee, had been shot twice and had been dead since early Sunday morning, police said.

There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry, police said, but Hansen’s car was missing from the home in the 5500 block of Citrus Court.

On June 1, Hansen had reported his son as a runaway, police said. The teen-ager also had run away from home in Paramount, where the two had lived until about two months ago.

“It is our impression that there were some bad feelings toward the father by the son,” said Cypress Police Lt. Jim Weuve.

Using leads from the runaway investigation, police tracked the teen-ager and the car to a Cerritos home. When the boy and an 11-year-old friend drove off, undercover police gave chase, Weuve said. Both boys were apprehended uninjured about 5:30 p.m. after the car smashed into a light pole. The 11-year-old was released to his parents.

The teen-ager was booked in Orange County Juvenile Hall, Weuve said.

Hansen won an Emmy for “individual achievement” for his work on the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, Weuve said. The boy was the youngest of three children adopted by Hansen and his former wife, a resident of Eugene, Ore., he said. The 15-year-old and his father lived at the home alone.

Weuve asked that anyone with information about the shooting call Cypress Police Department at (714) 229-6600.