Police have not been able to link Rasmussen to other cases, according toStrelzin. [10], Rasmussen resurfaced in December 1999 under the pseudonym Larry Vanner when California-based chemist Eunsoon Jun introduced him to her family. This isn't the big news we're hoping to break - stay subscribed for another full episode of Bear Brook that we hope to bring you soon. [31], The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children subsequently announced that an unidentified man, known by the alias "Robert Evans," was found through DNA to be the father of the middle child (who was not related to the three other victims). Their hard work, along with that of a dogged researcher, ultimately unraveled a long trail of missing and murdered women and children all leading back, police say, to a serial killer. Marlyse was excited to be a mom. I was like, There is no way there is no way thats a coincidence,' Heath said, This is huge.'. [4], In November 1985, the bodies of Honeychurch and Vaughn were found in a barrel in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. Her hair was wavy and light brown; she had no dental fillings. and I went, This can't be, Rose said of learning her friend was gone. [13], Police released a video of a police interview of Evans in June 2017 in hopes of finding his true identity. Rebekah Heath, a research librarian who said shed become obsessed with the case, helped identify the woman and the two children through her own sleuthing. One of his sons from this marriage provided the DNA sample that confirmed Rasmussen as Evans in June 2017. Want to make sure that NHPR continues creating projects like Bear Brook? In 1981, Denise Beaudin went missing shortly after Thanksgiving with her 6-month-old daughter and her boyfriend, Rasmussen, whom she had known as Robert T. Evans, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Murders", "N.H. missing woman case linked to bodies found in steel drums in state park", "AG: NH cold cases linked to California murder", National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, "Video of police interview with 'Bob Evans' released; authorities hope for clues about killer", "Authorities reveal actual identity of killer known as 'Bob Evans', "True ID of 'Chameleon' Killer Revealed Terry Peder Rasmussen", "New Hampshire's Most Infamous Cold Case Leads to Unrelated 1985 Tenn. His own taped confession. Police believe Honeychurch fled to New Hampshire with Rasmussen, who at that point had begun using the name "Bob Evans." He was polite and soft spoken and very smart, and with his twinkly blue eyes he could get somebody to maybe trust him, Gruenheid told 20/20. All we were really trying to do was to determine where Eunsoon was and if she was okay. Just disappeared.. I don't remember exactly what happened, Paula Hodges, Honeychurchs other sister, told 20/20. I just heard that they had an argument, Marlyse and my mom., My mom might've said something to her as, He's too old for you. Jenson arranged for Lisa to be taken to Southern California for two weeks with another family, Katherine and Richard Decker. The only evidence against him? In the show's second season, host Jason Moon returns with a new, even more complex story: In 1989, New Hampshire police charged three men in the murder of a pregnant woman named Sharon Johnson. Which says, yeah, there's more victims out there, definitely.. Investigators believe that the mother of the child was also killed by Rasmussen. THE CHAMELEON KILLER 'Bear Brook Murders' Starcasm Staff September 5, 2021 The Chameleon Killer, True Crime For 30 years the killer of bodies found in barrels near Bear Brook State Park,. [11], San Bernardino detective Peter Headley got Lisa's case in 2013 and genealogy website databases had grown since the case had started. If you have any information about these missing cases or others, please call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or visit its website at www.missingkids.org. Testing his DNA, they also determined that the man had not, in fact, been Lisas father and an investigation began to find out who Lisa really was. [6] These techniques have since been used in other high-profile cases, including the Golden State Killer case, leading to the arrest of suspect Joseph James DeAngelo in April 2018. [2] He often worked as an electrician for oil and gas companies. All the same guy., Watch the full story on "20/20" FRIDAY at 9 p.m. [26][27] In 2019, however, it is stated that the nonrelated child most likely originated from Arizona, Texas, California or Oregon, although additional locations cannot be excluded. By 2001, Rasmussen was working odd jobs in California under yet another alias, Lawrence Vanner. Vanner died in prison in December 2010 of natural causes. This isn't the big news we're hoping to break - stay subscribed for another full episode of Bear Brook that we hope to bring you soon. I would go to work and Id come home and I would just research and research and research.. But only 19-year-old Jason Carroll was convicted. She left the group home after receiving a furlough, so she was not reported missing until police were seeking more information on Rasmussen in 2017. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as "The Chameleon Killer". [12] On January 26, 2017, authorities publicly announced that Evans was a suspect in the disappearance of Denise Beaudin and the Bear Brook murders. We have his eyes. He finds Rasmussen to be a particularly repulsive serial killer in fact, the worst, in his opinion. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? A family tree begins to take shape. I don't know if my mother knew his capacity for violence, but I don't believe that she knew about this His ability to kill women and children., If my mother wouldn't have left my father, it couldve been me, she said.Would have been me.. The refrigerator had been dumped in a canal in San Joaquin County, California. When authorities traced all Rasmussens aliases back to his true name, they found that in the early 1970s, he had been married and fathered four children from that marriage. [20] The organization later released an updated version of the child's facial reconstruction. But it was a real-life murder mystery that had the 33-year-old amateur sleuth hooked a case as gruesome as it was shocking. For more on the case and to see a timeline of Sharon's last day, visit bearbrookpodcast.com. [3] He married in 1969, had four children and lived with his family in Phoenix and Redwood City, California. After his stint in the 1990s, Rasmussen stayed off authorities radar for a little over a decade. [35] He married in 1969, had four children, and lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and Redwood City, California. Inside The Rise And Fall Of Atlantic City, Retired Kansas City Detective Roger Golubski Charged With Sex-Trafficking Teenage Girls In The 1990s, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. [4][14] The two were buried in an Allenstown cemetery with a tombstone that read: "Here lies the mortal remains known only to God of a woman aged 23-33 and a girl child aged 8-10. Eunsoon Jun, a chemist from California, was the first victim authorities were able to tie to Rasmussen. "The Bear Brook case was the . [41] Sarah was laid to rest in Connecticut, closer to her father's family. But, I think until we know her identity, we're not going to solve the case.. In her free time, Heath began scouring the internet for any clues she could find. [13] Additionally, they announced that DNA confirmed that he was the father of the middle child found in Allenstown but that Evans was a pseudonym and his legal identity was not known. This new discovery didnt offer any immediate clues as to who the killer had been, though. The murder of Eunsoon Jun in Richmond, California. The hunter had been stalking deer on a property adjacent to New Hampshire's Bear Brook State Park. She had symptoms of pneumonia, a crooked front tooth and a diastema (space between her top teeth), two earrings in each ear, and was between 4ft 3in (1.30m) and 4ft 6in (1.37m) tall. Updates in the case of the Bear Brook Murders. This is the first in an unknown number of short updates to the story of the Bear Brook murders that we'll be producing to let listeners know about any breaking news in the case. An estranged cousin goes missing. Thanks for your support. In November 2015, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a third set of reconstructions of the four victims at a news conference at the New Hampshire State Attorney General's office. Diane Kloepfer is one of four biological children Terry Rasmussen fathered in his marriage. [28] Beaudin disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire, along with her young daughter and then-boyfriend Robert "Bob" Evans. How investigators had missed it over a decade prior remains unclear, but the second barrel, like the first, contained the mutilated bodies of two young girls, stored in the same manner. After an argument with her family, she left with Rasmussen and her two daughters, six-year-old Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and one-year-old Sarah Lynn McWaters. [18] However, DNA from Lamotte's relatives later proved that she was one of the victims in the Redhead murders, a series of unsolved homicides across the United States which are unrelated to Rasmussen. [1] [2] The podcast is hosted by Jason Moon and was released through New Hampshire Public Radio. Thanks for your support. [6] The divorce was finalized in 1978. He would say she decided she didn't like me anymore and didn't want me in her life. Their slain bodies were found on November 10th, 1985, in Bear Brook State Park. The poster claimed to be McWaters half-sister. In the early 1980s, a man who said his name was Gordon Jenson was living in a trailer park in California, with a little girl he called Lisa, who police say was about 4 or 5 years old at the time. Authorities believed that Evans was the killer of the four Bear Brook victims, but did not elaborate. In 2016, this child was determined to be Rasmussens biological daughter. Police officials announced on May 6 that three bodies two discovered in 1985 and a third discovered in 2000 were identified asMarlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, 24, and her two daughters, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, 6, and Sarah Lynn McWaters, 1. More than 30 years later, is it possible to get to the truth and who gets to tell it? Investigators said they finally got a break in 2017, when a new forensic technique known as genetic genealogy pinpointed Rasmussen as the likely culprit. The bodies could not be identified at the time, leading the case to go cold. A surprising admission leads to a new break in the case. It had previously been thought impossible to recover autosomal DNA from hair strands that were no longer attached to the root, but a forensic lab in California had been working on a new method to reassemble the broken autosomal DNA found in rootless hair. I was contacted one day by my nephew, and he was working with the sheriff's department out in California, Armand Beaudin told 20/20. They requested for me to do a DNA [test], and they discovered that I was the actual grandfather.. He had settled in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, under the alias "Bob Evans" in the late 1970s. October 31, 2018 A child is abandoned. The Bear Brook murders (also referred to as the Allenstown Four) are female American murder victims, two discovered in 1985 and two in 2000, at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, United States. Rasmussen is the suspected perpetrator of the Bear Brook murders. Gruenheid said she later determined a man matching Vanners description had bought 10 bags of cat litter from a nearby pet store. After countless hours of research, genetic genealogist Rae-Venter found Armand Beaudin, Lisas maternal grandfather. The mother of the middle child, the unidentified girl in the second barrel found at Bear Brook in 2000, who was determined to be Rasmussens biological daughter, has also never been found nor identified. Why are you with him? Hodges said. A chameleon is revealed. It can conquer death." +4. [6] They last saw Rasmussen around December 1975 or 1976, when he showed up with an unidentified woman. It was just a situation where, every time we searched, [we] came to a dead end. The identification of three decomposing corpses discovered in barrels in a New Hampshire state park have led police to believe they've solved a decades-old crime. Thanks for your support. [9][14] Daneault had been living on the same street as Rasmussen. Click here to donate $20. A chameleon is revealed. The hunt for a serial killer stretches to California as detectives unravel a tangled web of abuse and murder created by one man with many fake identities. In 2003, when the San Bernardino Sheriffs Department opened a new case aimed at finding Lisas biological family, she was approximately 22 years old. Honeychurchs youngest daughter, Sarah, was laid to rest in Connecticut, near her fathers family. Through the years my mother always said, You know, something's not right. She said her mother and Rasmussen got married in 1968 in Hawaii. I stood there for just a few seconds There was no odor. Subsequent investigations led to Honeychurch and her daughters being identified as three of the four victims found in Allenstown; the identity of the fourth victim, his daughter, remains unknown. When somebody's story keeps changing, it means that they [have] either made something up, can't remember what they told you the first time or that they're lying to you, she added. It just made me angry and curious.. It can conquer hate. She had brown hair and was about 3ft 8in (1.12m) tall. [36] The senior Rasmussen, known as the Chameleon killer, is believed to have used "at least five different aliases in a decades-long run of crimes across the country, including at least five homicides, and likely more. In 1989, Jenson, later identified as Rasmussen, was arrested for child abandonment and was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison. Show 8 More Episodes. The bodies were certainly killed around the same time as the first two, but with no way to identify them, and lacking any other insight, the investigation once again reached a dead end. [33] They also said that "Robert Evans" was a pseudonym and that the man's legal identity was unknown. How could it be bright and sunny when Eunsoon's dead?. He faces 30 years to life for each murder conviction and up to five years for the weapons charges. [1] The use of genetic genealogy to identify Rasmussen represented new possibilities in forensic investigations. When they reached out to Jenson again to finalize the adoption, he had disappeared. [3][4][11] This means that the woman could have been the girls' mother, aunt, or older sister. Thanks for your support. NEW YORK (AP) Amazon is pausing construction of its second headquarters in Virginia following the biggest round of layoffs in . Published: Mar. [10] These bodies were also in a metal 55-gallon drum, and police believe that all four murders occurred at roughly the same time, despite investigators inexplicably missing the second drum in 1985. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. MANCHESTER, N.H. The search for the name of the remaining unidentified murder victim found in a barrel in Allenstown is leading authorities to Mississippi. The family was comprised of Sarah McWaters, an infant, her older sister Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, and their mother Marlyse Honeychurch. [10] The reconstructions were created in black and white, as their skin tones and eye colors could not be determined.[24]. Bear Brook | S2 - TRAILER Trailer: Bear Brook S2: A True Crime Story 00:00 03:23 Inside The Horrifying Mystery Of The Bear Brook Murders. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! [11] Rasmussen was arrested under another alias, Gerry Mockerman, in 1988 for driving a stolen vehicle. Salamon said he and his family call the girl Angel.. We believe we have our killer, said New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Strelzin at the time. Rasmussen's identity was confirmed via DNA from a son from his first marriage. Lamotte had been found in Tennessee in 1985, killed about four months after her disappearance. The middle child, identified as Rasmussen's daughter, currently remains unidentified. His own taped confession. Their slain bodies were found on November 10th, 1985, in Bear Brook State Park. Authorities were able to link him then, using his fingerprints, to the earlier child abandonment case. Lisa sent a sample of her DNA to an ancestry website and learned her mothers name: Denise Beaudin. [29], In June 2017, police released a video of a police interview of Evans in hopes of finding his true identity. Rae-Venter said that in viewing the timeline for Rasmussen, it appears most likely that his daughter was born in Texas, possibly on the Gulf Coast if Rasmussen was working on an oil rig at the time. Honeychurch was last seen at her mothers house in La Puente, California, around Thanksgiving in 1978. May their souls find peace in Gods loving care.. For Bear Brook listeners, a full episode preview of Jason Moon's latest reporting project, Death Resulting. Two investigators work parallel leads, and authorities call a press conference. Then, 15 years later on May 9, 2000, a second 55-gallon drum was discovered in the same area. [7], By 1978, Rasmussen was dating Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch. "[14] He has been dubbed "The Chameleon Killer" due to his use of various aliases and his crime spree which stretched across the country. Maricopa County Sheriffs Department, Arizona.A mugshot of Terry Rasmussen from 1973. [21], The youngest girl, later identified as McWaters, was estimated to be 1 to 3 years old,[9][19] had long blond or light brown hair, was between 2ft 1in (0.64m) and 2ft 6in (0.76m) tall, and also had a gap between her front teeth.[22][23]. Associate N.H. Attorney General Jeff Strelzin identifies the three of the victims in the Bear Brook murder case. Inside, he found two bodies, dismembered, wrapped in plastic bags, and highly skeletonized beyond recognition, Oxygen reported. Advanced forensic testing showed the 2-to-4-year-old girl (since identified as Rasmussen's daughter) probably spent most of her childhood in either the upper Northeast or upper Midwest, perhaps Wisconsin. Huber said the body of a woman was found in a state of advanced decomposition and police couldnt discern the womans facial features. One of the victims had been his daughter. Honeychurch had an argument with her mother and left the residence, never contacting her relatives again. Marie Vaughn was last seen with her mother and sister at a Thanksgiving gathering in 1978. The Family in Barrels. He didn't even look healthy. She was 2 to 4 years old at the time of her death, placing her birthdate between 1975-1977. In 1985 the plastic wrapped bodies of a woman and girl were discovered in a metal drum in a forest in Allenstown, New Hampshire. Since 2017, he has been named as a suspect in several other crimes. In 1985 two bodies were discovered in a barrel in the Bear Brook State Park. It was there that she introduced her family to her boyfriend, Terry Rasmussen, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice. After months of trial and error, Rae-Venter was able to use this method to identify the victims. bodies found. It's a blue 55-gallon steel drum. In 2017, using genetic genealogy techniques, investigators were finally able to name their man: Terry Rasmussen, an inmate who had died seven years earlier, in 2010, while serving a sentence for the murder of his then-girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun. Jensen told Gomulka at CrimeCon that Rasmussen put Jun's body in a 75-pound pile of kitty litter before he was able to dispose of her. New methods of inquiry are used to crack other cold cases. All of them are still alive. He pleaded guilty to the death of his partnerEunsoon Jun, landing him a 15 year prison sentence, according to The Los Angeles Times. It was just odd that the barrel was out there It was [a] slightly rusted, dark blue barrel. Want to make sure that NHPR continues creating projects like Bear Brook? The Bear Brook Murders. She had been placed in the refrigerator with a pillow, sleeping bag and what appeared to be several blankets, he said. He had been convicted and sentenced as Evans for the 2002 murder and dismemberment of his wife at the time, Eunsoon Jun, a chemist in California. [9] Beaudin was not reported missing at the time as her family believed she left town due to financial reasons. It was determined that they had been killed sometime between 1977 and 1985. Four months later, Ron Montplaisir, who was an Allenstown, New Hampshire police officer at the time, got a call from dispatch to meet a hunter at the edge of the woods. A fox, a wolf and a spaceboy: Felix, Zo and Arlo Duff posed up a storm ahead of their school day in celebration of World Book Day. Honeychurch was last seen in La Puente, California, on Thanksgiving day that year. Bear Brook murder victims remembered. They are: Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, the adult woman whose remains were discovered in 1985, and her two biological daughters, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and Sarah Lynn McWaters. When people ask me who was the worst serial killer out there I point to him and the reason is this: he not only would kill a woman but he would take their children, molest their children, and not only that but use their children as a lure to get his next victim and I cant think of anything more horrible than that.. On June 6, 2019, the New Hampshire Attorney General's office revealed that investigators had successfully identified three of the four Bear Brook murders victims. [16], Elizabeth Lamotte was 17 years old when she disappeared from the Youth Development Center in Manchester in 1984. Homicide", "Four Unidentified Allenstown Homicide Victims", "Allenstown, NH murder victims identified after nearly 40 years", "New rendering released for unidentified girl found in barrel in Allenstown", Original digital reconstruction of middle child, "3 bodies hidden in barrels remained unidentified for decades. There's always that hope, but nothing's definite.. I guess dying serves him right, Rose said. "So our suspect started in 1984 as 'Curtis Kimball.' Then we had 'Gordon Jenson.' Click here to donate $20. And he brings a fresh examination of the evidence to a state that has never exonerated anyone for murder. [15], When Lisa was interviewed by detectives in 1986, they asked her if she had any siblings. For more than 30 years, that story has profoundly shaped the lives of many people. More than 30 years later, is it possible to get to the truth - and who gets to tell it? Terry Rasmussen poses as "Curtis Kimball" in an arrest photo from 1990. We do regrettably fear that his daughter's mother is probably another victim somewhere, Carol Schweitzer, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said. He later abandoned that child, whom he had pretended to father and called Lisa, in a trailer park. After his release, he assumed the name "Larry Vanner" and began living with chemist Eunsoon Jun in 2001. [8], On November 10, 1985, a hunter found a metal 55-gallon drum near the site of a burned-down store at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. Replies were filled with other people who also believed they were related to Sarah one member of a family of three who had gone missing sometime in the late 1970s. The last time Honeychurch was seen by her family wasonThanksgiving 1978, according to a timeline released by the attorney general's office. This isn't the big news we're hoping to break - stay subscribed for another full episode of Bear Brook that we hope to bring you soon. And he wasnt being cooperative with that at all.. In November 2019, Honeychurch and her older daughter Marie Vaughn, were laid to rest together with a new headstone bearing their names in Allenstown, New Hampshire. The focus from this day forward should be to find the family of that little girl, he said. Yet, they still had no clue who the victims were. True crime media like books, podcasts and TV shows continue to be a multimillion-dollar industry . Honeychurch may have adopted the alias name "Elizabeth Evans" to use in legal documents during May 1980. Let's talk about the Bear Brook murders. A second search was conducted in May 2018. His true identity, Terry Rasmussen, was not revealed by authorities until 2017. We had a sister that was gone. [5] In 1989, he received a three-year prison sentence for child abandonment. ET on ABC. He was 62 years old when he passed away in prison. His face was gray. February 27, 2023 We begin with the story police told about Sharon Johnson's murder. She married Sarah's father in September 1974, and the two were separated by the time she was known to be dating Rasmussen. [5] Throughout 1980, he was arrested in Manchester three times for writing a bad check, theft, and diverting electric current. Maricopa County Sheriffs Department, Arizona. And we watched the barrel fall on its side, Morgan said. There is one girl who we don't know who she is. He was just a really, really bad man, one of the worst, Jensen said. While searching Vanners California home, Gruenheid and a fellow detective located an enormous pile of cat litter in a crawl space. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images. [6] He was arrested in Cypress, California, in 1985 under the name Curtis Kimball for charges of driving under the influence and endangering the welfare of a child but failed to appear in court. Curiously, the first drum was way back in 1985 and the second wasnt discovered until 2000. She had an overbite, which was probably noticeable. [5][3] A woman named "Elizabeth Evans" was listed as his wife during his time in New Hampshire; this woman has never been identified. In February 2020, it was announced that DNA analysis suggested the child was primarily Caucasian, with slight Asian, African, and Native American heritage. Instead, they focus on complete strangers. The bodies were eventually buried in a nearby cemetery with a tombstone that read: Here lies the mortal remains known only to God of a woman aged 23-33 and a girl child aged 8-10. It would take 17 years until the killer could be named and another two until his victims would be identified. October 31, 2018 This is part two of episode 5. Investigators knew who their killer was, but they still had no clue who the victims were. Came to a dead end. The Allenstown Four. Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin explained the discovery at a press conference on June 6. It was reported that he was known to travel with women and children. These versions incorporated their dental information, showing how their teeth could have affected the appearance of their faces. [15], The fourth victim's identity is not yet known, but investigators stated that through advanced DNA testing they could confirm the child was Rasmussen's. Jun disappeared from Richmond, California, in June 2002, approximately two years after Vanner met her family and friends. A search leads authorities to his basement. [6] Aided by genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter in 2015, Beaudin's daughter discovered her mother's identity and that the man she once thought had been her father was her kidnapper.