This post has been updated to improve the clarity
Four victims were discovered at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. They were dismembered, skeletonized, wrapped in plastic bags, and packed into two 55-gallon steel barrels. The case baffled authorities for years. And decades, no one could identify them, referring to them as the “Bear Brook killings.”
The first drum was discovered in 1985, while the second was not discovered until 2000. However, there was no doubt that the murders were the work of the same killer.
It turned out, however, that the killer had several identities throughout his lifetime. He was known sometimes as “Curtis Kimball,” others as “Larry Vanner,” and frequently as “Bob Evans,”. His true name was revealed to be Terry Rasmussen in 2017(seven years after his death).
This is the complicated story of the Bear Brook murders.
Four bodies are discovered 15 years apart in Bear Brook State Park.
On November 10, 1985, a hunter exploring Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, stumbled upon a big industrial steel drum.
Inside, he discovered two dismembered remains wrapped in plastic bags and so “skeletonized” that they were unrecognizable. They were determined to have been murdered between 1977 and 1985.
The remains were later buried in a nearby cemetery, with a gravestone bearing the inscription:
“Here lies the mortal remains known only to God of a woman aged 23-33 and a girl child aged 8-10. Their slain bodies were found on November 10th, 1985, in Bear Brook State Park. May their souls find peace in God’s loving care.”
The case was then forgotten.
Then, on May 9, 2000, fifteen years later, a second 55-gallon barrel was discovered in the same spot. The second barrel, like the first, contained the remains of two young girls, preserved in the same manner.
However, this discovery did not immediately reveal the identity of the murderer. The investigation once again came to a dead end due to their inability to positively identify the deceased and the lack of any further leads.
It would take 17 years to identify the perpetrator, and an additional two to identify his victims.
Terry Peder Rasmussen — The Serial Killer With Multiple Identities
Using genetic genealogy techniques, police were finally able to identify their suspect in 2017- Terry Rasmussen. He was a prisoner who had died in 2010 while serving time for the murder of his then-girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun.
However, this was not Rasmussen’s first time in prison; he had simply been using a new identity. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rasmussen served time in prison in the early 1990s for theft under the name Robert Evans.
Before that, he had been imprisoned in 1988 for driving a stolen vehicle under the name Gerry Mockerman and in 1985 for drunk driving and endangering the welfare of a child called Lisa. He later abandoned that child, whom he had pretended to father in a trailer park.
After his time in jail in the 1990s, Rasmussen remained off the radar for over a decade.
In 2001, he was working odd jobs in California under another name, Lawrence Vanner. In the same year, he held an “unofficial backyard wedding” with Eunsoon Jun in Richmond, although no marriage license was ever submitted.
A year later, Jun’s dismembered and buried remains were discovered in her basement. Contrary to his attorneys’ recommendations, “Vanner” pleaded guilty to the murder during his trial.
Using his fingerprints, authorities were then able to link him to the earlier case of child abandonment. Testing his DNA revealed that he was not Lisa’s biological father, and an investigation was launched to uncover who Lisa’s biological father was.
The Amateur Detectives Responsible for Solving the Bear Brook Murders
In October 2018, New Hampshire Public Radio aired a podcast titled “Bear Brook” that examined the disturbing case.
Becky Heath, a 34-year-old librarian from Connecticut, was intrigued by the podcast, which had revived her interest in the case. Heath began searching the Internet for any hints during her free time.
She stated, “I got a little crazy with it.” “I would go to work and I’d come home and I would just research and research and research.”
She discovered an online post that mentioned Sarah McWaters. The person who made the post claimed to be McWaters’ half-sister.
The comment section of the post was flooded with people who claimed they were related to Sarah McWaters, a member of the family members that went missing in the late 1970s. The family was made up of Sarah who was very small, her older sister Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, and their mother Marlys Honeychurch.
Heath continued searching, communicating with family members who knew about Terry Rasmussen. It became clear that Honeychurch was last seen with Rasmussen.
“I was like, ‘There is no way — there is no way that’s a coincidence,’” Heath said, “‘This is huge.’”
Barbara Rae-Venter, a genetic genealogist, independently utilized the victims’ DNA to identify them using a cutting-edge approach that made use of autosomal DNA, which is found inside the cell nucleus.
Until recently, it was believed that it was impossible to retrieve autosomal DNA from hair strands that were no longer linked to the root. However, a forensic laboratory in California had been developing a new technique to reassemble the fragmented autosomal DNA present in rootless hair.
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