Bear Brook murders

In 2014, police announced that DNA profiling had revealed through MtDNA that the woman, and oldest and youngest girls were maternally related.[3][4][11] This means that the woman could have been the girls' mother, aunt, or older sister.[10][25] In 2015, the woman was identified as the mother of the two girls.

Other forensic information showed that the woman and children lived together in the Northeastern United States between two weeks and three months before their deaths. Investigators have concluded the woman and two of the children lived in the area where their bodies were found. 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.[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.[20]

Terry Peder Rasmussen pictured in 2002 after his arrest for the murder of Eunsoon Jun

In January 2017, it was announced that Denise Beaudin, who had been missing since 1981, was connected to the murders.[28] Beaudin disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire, along with her young daughter and then-boyfriend Robert "Bob" Evans. Evans later abandoned a young girl, "Lisa", at a campground, and she was found to not be his daughter.[29] Beaudin was not reported missing until 2016, when her daughter resurfaced alive and well in California after there was more publicity about the murders and Beaudin's disappearance.[30] The daughter is keeping her name private.[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). Authorities believed that Evans was the killer of the four Bear Brook victims, but did not elaborate.[32]

Authorities said in 2018 that the Bear Brook woman was not Beaudin.[33] They also said that "Robert Evans" was a pseudonym and that the man's legal identity was unknown.[29]

Evans died in prison in December 2010. 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.[29]

In June 2017, police released a video of a police interview of Evans in hopes of finding his true identity.[34] Two months later, Robert Evans was confirmed as Terry Peder Rasmussen, through Y-DNA testing from a DNA sample contributed by one of his sons from what is believed to be his first marriage. Born in 1943, Rasmussen was a native of Denver, Colorado.[35] He married in 1969, had four children, and lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and Redwood City, California. His wife left him between 1973 and 1974 and his family last saw him around Christmas 1974. One of his sons from this marriage provided the DNA sample that confirmed Rasmussen as Evans in June 2017.[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."[37]

On June 6, 2019, New Hampshire investigators held a press conference regarding the case and revealed the identities of three of the victims. Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch (b. 1954) was the mother of Marie Elizabeth Vaughn (b. 1971) and Sarah Lynn McWaters (b. 1977),[38] all of whom went missing from La Puente, California, around Thanksgiving 1978, while she was dating Rasmussen. Honeychurch had an argument with her mother and left the residence, never contacting her relatives again. Honeychurch may have adopted the alias name "Elizabeth Evans" to use in legal documents during May 1980.[8][39] It is believed that all four victims were murdered before 1981, as Rasmussen was known to have left New Hampshire after this time.[39]

Sarah's younger half brother, who had never met her, created a post in 1999 on the Ancestry.com website in efforts to locate her. She was born in Hawaiian Gardens, California, when her father was in the Marines. Similar posts also aided in the identifications of the victims.[38]

Marlyse had previously married Marie's father in June 1971 and divorced by 1974. She married Sarah's father in September 1974, and the two were separated by the time she was known to be dating Rasmussen. The children both went through periods where they were in the custody of their fathers, but Marlyse would later regain guardianship.[39] By October 1978, Sarah's father was seeing another woman and Sarah was presumably in the care of her mother.[8]

Honeychurch and Vaughn's funeral was held in November 2019 in Allenstown, during which they were given a new headstone bearing their names.[15] In attendance were members of Honeychurch's family and Rasmussen's daughter from his first marriage.[40] Sarah was laid to rest in Connecticut, closer to her father's family.[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. They have so far been unable to identify who the mother of the child is and whether or not she may still be alive.[41] In February 2020, a new rendering of the fourth victim was released by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and New Hampshire State Police.[42] In 2021, investigators revealed that the middle child's mother had relatives in Pearl River County, Mississippi;[43] the following year, they determined that she was most likely a descendant of Thomas "Deadhorse" Mitchell,[44] a man who was born in 1836 and would be the fifth- or sixth-great-grandfather of the child.[43] Rasmussen's daughter, Andrea Stiers, has said that she believes she met Jane Doe when she was very young, and that she was cute. She also believes that Jane Doe was half-Asian, and that the only reason Rasmussen did not kill her (Stiers) was because she looked like him, and that Jane Doe did not look like him.[45]