Who Was Ray Dahms?

Ray Dahms, 18-year-old Rapidan High School senior from Minnesota, photographed in 1965 before his death in the Mankato gas station murder.
Ray Dahms, a Rapidan High School senior in 1965. He was 18 years old when his life was tragically cut short near Mankato, Minnesota.

Ray Dahms was an 18-year-old recent high school graduate from Rapidan in south-central Minnesota whose life was tragically cut short in September or 1965. Dahms was working an evening shift at an all night gas station near Rapidan and Mankato when he was shot and killed during what police first described as a robbery attempt. The killing shocked the quiet farming communities surrounding Mankato and became one of Minnesota’s most haunting murder cases of the 1960s.

A local teenager, 17-year-old Brian Lee Hendrickson, was soon arrested and later convicted for the crime. The details of the murder, the investigation that followed, and the lasting grief within the Dahms family continue to resonate with those who remember the case.

Ray Dahms was remembered as a kind and hard-working young man who had recently graduated from Rapidan High School. Friends and classmates described him as polite, soft-spoken, and loyal — someone who loved cars, the outdoors, and small-town life. He had become engaged to be married just two months before his death.

His killer’s continued criminal career

Nearly sixty years later, Dakota Spotlight has uncovered how Ray Dahms’s death is connected to a deeper story — one involving the man convicted of killing him, Brian Lee Hendrickson, who went on to commit other crimes after his release. The season explores how questionable decisions by the State of Minnesota allowed those later offenses to occur, raising ongoing questions about parole, rehabilitation, and justice.

The story of Ray Dahms and the man who killed him, Brian Lee Hendrickson, is explored in depth in Season 12 of the Dakota Spotlight true crime podcast: Meanwhile in Mankato – Lies, Silence & Murder in Minnesota.

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.

And listen to the six-part Dakota Spotlight podcast series, Meanwhile in Mankato for the complete investigation.