Terry Peder Rasmussen

Terry Peder Rasmussen (December 23, 1943 – December 28, 2010) was an American serial killer who killed at least six people in a series of crimes that stretched across the contiguous United States from the late 1970s through the early 2000s. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as "The Chameleon Killer".

Terry Rasmussen
Rasmussen's 2002 mugshot
Born(1943-12-23)December 23, 1943
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
DiedDecember 28, 2010 (aged 67)
High Desert State Prison, Susanville, California, U.S.
Other namesRobert "Bob" Evans
Curtis Mayo Kimball
Gordon Jensen
Larry Vanner
Gerry Mockerman
Criminal chargeMurder
Penalty15 years to life
Details
Victims6+
Span of crimes
c. 1978–2002
CountryUnited States
State(s)New Hampshire, California
Date apprehended
2002

Rasmussen is the prime suspect in the unsolved Bear Brook murders, which took place in New Hampshire in 1978. The bodies of his girlfriend, her two daughters, and his own daughter were discovered in two barrels in the Allenstown area between 1985 and 2000. After another girlfriend disappeared from New Hampshire in 1981, Rasmussen abducted the victim's daughter and fled to California. He deserted the child in 1986 and was subsequently imprisoned on child abandonment charges. After his release, he began living with chemist Eunsoon Jun in 2001. He died in prison in 2010 after being convicted of Jun's 2002 murder.

Although the Allenstown barrels were discovered during his lifetime, Rasmussen was not named as the culprit until 2017, when DNA profiling connected him to the crime. Subsequent investigations led to three of the Bear Brook victims being identified; the identity of the fourth victim, Rasmussen's daughter, remains unknown. Since 2017, he has been named as a suspect in several other crimes.

Early life

Terry Peder Rasmussen was born on December 23, 1943,[1] in Denver, Colorado.[2] Growing up in Arizona, he attended North High School in Phoenix until dropping out during his sophomore year in 1960.[3][4] He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1961 and served until he was discharged in 1967.[3]

Rasmussen married in 1969, had four children and lived with his family in Phoenix and Redwood City, California.[5] Rasmussen's family later recalled that he was physically abusive to his family, burning one of his sons with cigarette butts.[6] His wife left him with the children in 1975 after he was arrested for aggravated assault.[6] The family last saw Rasmussen around December 1975 or 1976, when he showed up at their home with an unidentified woman.[6] The divorce was finalized in 1978.[6]

Rasmussen lived in a number of states including Arizona, Colorado, California, Idaho, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon and Hawaii, finally settling in New Hampshire sometime in the late 1970s. It was reported that he was known to travel with women and children.[2] He often worked as an electrician for oil and gas companies. While living in Manchester, New Hampshire, Rasmussen lived under the alias "Bob Evans" and worked at the Waumbec Mill.[5] He was arrested three times in 1980, for writing a bad check, theft, and diverting electric current.[5][3] A woman named "Elizabeth Evans" was listed as his wife during his time in New Hampshire; this woman has never been identified.[7]

Crimes

Bear Brook murders
Main article: Bear Brook murders

By 1978, Rasmussen was dating Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch. Honeychurch was last seen in La Puente, California, on Thanksgiving day that year. 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.[4]

In November 1985, the bodies of Honeychurch and Vaughn were found in a barrel in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.[4] They were found to have died of blunt force trauma to their heads.[8] A second barrel was found about 100 yards from the first one in 2000 containing the body of McWaters and an unidentified child aged between two and four years old. The identities of Honeychurch and her two children were not known until they were confirmed by DNA profiling in 2019. As of June 2019, the third child remains unidentified, but authorities were able to confirm that Rasmussen was her biological father.[4]

Denise Beaudin and Lisa

While using the pseudonym Bob Evans, Rasmussen dated Denise Beaudin, who disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire, after Thanksgiving of 1981 with her six-month-old daughter.[8] Authorities believe that Rasmussen killed Beaudin somewhere in California, although her body has never been found.[9] Beaudin was not reported missing at the time as her family believed she left town due to financial reasons.[10]

Throughout the early 1980s, Rasmussen remained in possession of Beaudin's daughter, whom he called Lisa, and posed as her father.[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. He then took on the alias Gordon Jenson and abandoned the child at an RV park in Scotts Valley, California, in 1986.[11] Rasmussen was arrested under another alias, Gerry Mockerman, in 1988 for driving a stolen vehicle.[5] In 1989, he received a three-year prison sentence for child abandonment. Under a plea deal, an additional charge of child abuse was dropped.[6] He was paroled in 1990 and subsequently absconded.[10]

Eunsoon Jun

Rasmussen resurfaced in December 1999 under the pseudonym Larry Vanner when California-based chemist Eunsoon Jun introduced him to her family.[6] The two were married in an unofficial ceremony in 2001.[10] Jun disappeared in June 2002 and her body was found buried in cat litter in their home after having died from blunt force trauma to the head.[8][10] He was arrested that November and pleaded no contest in 2003[12] to charges relating to her murder and dismemberment. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in jail.[5]

The guilty plea came as a surprise to the court; Contra Costa County homicide detective Roxane Gruenheid has stated that she thinks he pleaded guilty after overhearing her say that she was going to request a paternity test for Lisa.[6] A fingerprint match had confirmed that along with Vanner, he had previously used the aliases Jenson and Kimball,[5] linking him to the child abandonment case. In 2003, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department opened a case to find Lisa's biological family.[8] DNA evidence eventually found that he was not Lisa's father and the case spent years without any significant developments.[12][6]

Rasmussen died, aged 67, while imprisoned at High Desert State Prison[5] on December 28, 2010.[7] His cause of death was a combination of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia.[11]

Posthumous findings
Reconstructions of the four victims found in Allenstown. The child pictured at the far right, who was Rasmussen's biological daughter, remains unidentified.

San Bernardino detective Peter Headley got Lisa's case in 2013 and genealogy website databases had grown since the case had started.[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. This linked him to New Hampshire in the same timeframe as the Bear Brook murders, when he was known as Robert Evans.[12] On January 26, 2017, authorities publicly announced that Evans was a suspect in the disappearance of Denise Beaudin and the Bear Brook murders.[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.[13]

Police released a video of a police interview of Evans in June 2017 in hopes of finding his true identity.[5] Two months later, he was confirmed to be Rasmussen, through Y-DNA testing from a DNA sample contributed by one of his children from what is believed to be his first marriage.[1] The use of genetic genealogy to identify Rasmussen represented new possibilities in forensic investigations.[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.[12]

New Hampshire investigators announced that the identities of Honeychurch, Vaughn and McWaters were confirmed through DNA testing in June 2019.[4] The identities of the middle child, who Rasmussen fathered, and her mother remain unknown. Investigators believe that the mother of the child was also killed by Rasmussen.[4]

Criminologist Jack Levin has stated that Rasmussen is unlike any serial killer he has ever studied, stating: "What distinguishes Rasmussen from most serial killers, is that he targeted people with whom he had a relationship. Most serial killers would never do that; it's the last thing they would do. Instead, they focus on complete strangers."[14] He has been dubbed "The Chameleon Killer" due to his use of various aliases and his crime spree which stretched across the country.[15]

Suspect in other crimes
Bag of ice found with the body of Amanda Schumann Deza who was left in a refrigerator in California in 1995.

Rasmussen lived a mile and a half away from 14-year-old Laureen Rahn when she disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire, in April 1980.[14] Denise Daneault, a 25-year-old woman who lived two blocks from the Rahn residence, went missing from a bar in June 1980.[9][14] Daneault had been living on the same street as Rasmussen. Police and FBI agents conducted a search in Manchester after receiving an anonymous tip regarding Daneault in November 2017, after Rasmussen was announced as the Bear Brook killer. A second search was conducted in May 2018.[9] By 2020, New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said there was no "evidentiary connection" between Daneault and Rasmussen but that the interest in his case brought renewed attention to Daneault's disappearance.[16]

Elizabeth Lamotte was 17 years old when she disappeared from the Youth Development Center in Manchester in 1984. 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.[17] At that time, a tipster speculated that she could have been the "Elizabeth Evans" that had been listed as Rasmussen's wife during his time in Manchester.[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. Lamotte had been found in Tennessee in 1985, killed about four months after her disappearance.[15]

When Lisa was interviewed by detectives in 1986, they asked her if she had any siblings. She said that she did but "they died eating ‘grass mushrooms’ when they were out camping". Her answer led police to believe that Rasmussen killed them too.[8]

San Joaquin County, California Assistant Sheriff John Huber speculated that Rasmussen may have been responsible for killing Amanda Schumann Deza. In 1995, her body was discovered by scavengers inside of a refrigerator which had been dumped in a canal. Like Rasmussen's confirmed victims, she had died of blunt force trauma to the head.[8] Having previously been an unidentified victim, known as the "San Joaquin Jane Doe"[8] and the "Lady in the Fridge", Deza was identified by Othram on February 23, 2023.[19]

See also

References
  1. Augenstein, Seth (August 18, 2017). "True ID of 'Chameleon' Killer Revealed Terry Peder Rasmussen". Forensic Magazine. Archived from the original on June 18, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  2. Mitchell, Kirk (August 18, 2017). "Denver-born suspected serial killer hid remains of woman, 3 girls in barrels". The Denver Post. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  3. Duckler, Ray (November 2, 2017). "Authorities piece together a N.H. cold case in an attempt to ID victims". Concord Monitor. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  4. Duckler, Ray (June 6, 2019). "Officials identify 3 of 4 victims discovered in barrels near Bear Brook State Park". Concord Monitor. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  5. Downey, KC (June 6, 2019). "Case timeline: Killer Terry Peder Rasmussen, also known as 'Bob Evans'". WMUR-TV. Retrieved June 7, 2019.
  6. Effron, Lauren; Halaban, Boaz; Dorian, Marc (March 19, 2020). "How a Jane Doe child case uncovered a serial killer, identified victims and changed the use of DNA forensics". ABC News. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  7. "AG: Man who killed woman, 3 children in Allenstown also killed missing Manchester woman". WFXT. January 26, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  8. Yang, Allie; Boaz, Halaban (March 17, 2020). "Serial killer Terry Rasmussen's victims, known and unknown". ABC News. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  9. Suarez Sang, Lucia I. (May 15, 2018). "Serial killer may be behind 1980 disappearance of New Hampshire mom, cops say". Fox News. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  10. Casey, Michael (June 6, 2019). "Authorities identify 3 bodies linked to suspected killer". Associated Press. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  11. "Timeline of serial killer Terry Rasmussen's terror in New Hampshire, California". WBAL. March 18, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
  12. Gafni, Matthias (August 24, 2018). "The woman behind the scenes who helped capture the Golden State Killer". The Mercury News. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  13. Connor, Tracy (January 26, 2017). "Drifter Bob Evans Eyed as Serial Killer, Tied to N.H. Murders". NBC News. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  14. Ward, Bob (February 16, 2018). "Criminologist: 'Allenstown killer is unlike any serial killer I have ever studied'". WFXT. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  15. Augenstine, Seth (November 15, 2018). "New Hampshire's most infamous cold case leads to unrelated 1985 Tenn. homicide". Forensic Magazine. Archived from the original on June 18, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  16. Downey, KC (June 11, 2020). "New Hampshire unsolved case file: Disappearance of Denise Daneault". WMUR-TV. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
  17. Feely, Paul (November 14, 2018). "Remains found in Tennessee in 1985 identified as teen missing from Manchester since 1984". New Hampshire Union Leader. Retrieved August 28, 2020.
  18. Dorman, Travis (November 14, 2018). "Homicide victim in Greene County cold case identified after 33 years". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  19. Mayorquin, Orlando (February 28, 2023). "'The lady in the fridge' identified in California cold case after almost 30 years, officials say". USA Today. Retrieved April 25, 2023.
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