Who Was Brian Lee Hendrickson?
Brian Lee Hendrickson was a young man from south-central Minnesota whose name became linked to one of the region’s crimes of the 1960s — the 1965 murder of gas-station attendant Ray Dahms near Rapidan and Mankato, Minnesota. Police arrested Hendrickson when he was only 17 years old, and a Minnesota court later convicted him of Dahms’s killing.
After serving time in the Minnesota State Prison, the state eventually paroled Hendrickson, and he went on to live a complicated and troubled life marked by further legal troubles and personal decline.
His story — and the lasting impact of his actions on the people and communities of southern Minnesota — is explored in depth in Season 12 of the Dakota Spotlight true crime podcast: Meanwhile in Mankato – Lies, Silence & Murder in Minnesota.
Brian’s history
Brian Lee Hendrickson was born in 1948 and was the oldest of four children of Orvin and Verna Hendrickson. His parents came from eastern South Dakota before settling in south-central Minnesota, where the family lived primarily in Blooming Prairie. When Verna died in 1961, their father took two of the children while an aunt cared for the others. The following years were marked by frequent moves and instability.
By 1964, Brian was living in Marshall, Minnesota, attending high school and playing on the basketball team. When his father, Orvin, took a maintenance job at Mankato State College, the family relocated once again — this time to Mankato. Within a year, police arrested the 17-year-old for the fatal shooting of gas-station attendant Ray Dahms — a crime that changed the course of his life and haunted the nearby community of Rapidan for decades.
Explore more
To learn more about the people and events behind this story, explore:
- Listen: Meanwhile in Mankato — the six-part Dakota Spotlight podcast series exploring the 1965 Mankato Gas Station Murder.
- Read: Ray Dahms — a look at the 18-year-old gas-station attendant killed near Mankato in 1965.
- Read: Brian Lee Hendrickson — the teenager convicted of the crime and later linked to other offenses.
- Read: Overview of the case — background information on the 1965 Mankato Gas Station Murder explored in Season 12 of Dakota Spotlight.