Terry Peder Rasmussen

Terrence "Terry" Peder Rasmussen (December 23, 1943 – December 28, 2010), also known as "The Chameleon Killer", or "Bob Evans", was an American serial killer, known for using numerous aliases in a crime spree that spanned decades across many states. He died in prison in 2010 after being convicted in the 2002 murder of his common-law wife in California. He received more media attention after his death when he was announced as the primary suspect in the Bear Brook murders.

Rasmussen was born in 1943 in Denver, Colorado. He grew up and attended school in Arizona. In 1967, he was discharged from the Navy. He married in 1969 and had four children. His family lived in Phoenix, Arizona and Redwood City, California before his wife left him between 1973 and 1974. They last saw Rasmussen around Christmas 1974.

Rasmussen lived in a number of states, including: Colorado, Idaho, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Hawaii and California. He settled in New Hampshire sometime in the late 1970s. The Denver Post reports that he was known to travel with women and children. He often worked as an electrician for oil and gas companies. While living in Manchester, New Hampshire, Rasmussen lived under the alias "Robert 'Bob' Evans" and worked at the Waumbec Mill.

A woman named "Elizabeth Evans" was listed as his wife during his time in New Hampshire; this woman has never been identified. In the succeeding decades, Rasmussen was arrested for a range of crimes, including DUI, driving without a license and driving a stolen vehicle. He was booked under the aliases Curtis Mayo Kimball, Gordon Jensen, Larry Vanner and Gerry Mockerman.

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, 6-year-old Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and 1-year-old Sarah Lynn McWaters. In November 1985, the bodies of Honeychurch and Vaughn were found in a barrel in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.

A second barrel was found about 100 yards from the first one in 2000 containing the body of McWaters and a still 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 testing in 2019. Although the third child remains unidentified, authorities were able to confirm through DNA testing that the child was Rasmussen's.

While known as Bob Evans, Rasmussen dated Denise Beaudin, who disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire after Thanksgiving of 1981 with her 6-month-old daughter. Authorities believe that Rasmussen killed Beaudin somewhere in California, although her body has never been found. Beaudin was not reported missing at the time as her family believed she left town due to financial reasons. Although Rasmussen remained in possession of Beaudin’s daughter, he abandoned the child in 1986 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail for child abandonment as part of a plea bargain he took to drop charges of child molestation and vehicle theft. He was paroled in 1990 and subsequently absconded.

In June 2002, his common-law wife, chemist Eunsoon Jun, went missing. He was arrested that November and pleaded no contest in 2003 to charges relating to her murder and dismemberment. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in jail. At the time, he had been using the name "Larry Vanner".

A fingerprint match confirmed he had previously used the aliases "Gordon Jenson" and "Curtis Kimball". A Contra Costa County detective had connected Vanner to the child abandonment case involving Beaudin's daughter, who believed that Vanner was her father, but DNA evidence found there was no relation. Rasmussen died while imprisoned on December 28, 2010.

Aided by genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter in 2015, Beaudin's daughter discovered her mother's identity and that "Vanner" had been her kidnapper, linking him to the area in the same timeframe as the Bear Brooks murders. Authorities officially announced that Beaudin's disappearance was linked to the Bear Brook murders on January 26, 2017. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also announced on January 26 that "Robert Evans" was found through DNA to be the father of the middle child, but that "Robert Evans" was a pseudonym and that the man's legal identity was unknown.

Police released a video of a police interview of Evans in June 2017 in hopes of finding his true identity. Two months later, Robert Evans was confirmed to be Rasmussen, through Y-DNA testing from a DNA sample contributed by one of his sons from what is believed to be his first marriage. The techniques used to identify Rasmussen were used in the Golden State Killer case, leading to the arrest of suspect Joseph James DeAngelo in April 2018.

New Hampshire investigators announced that the identities of Honeychurch, Vaughn and McWaters were confirmed through DNA testing in June 2019. 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.

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." He has been dubbed "The Chameleon Killer" due to his use of various aliases and his crime spree which stretched across the country.

Rasmussen lived a mile and a half away from 14-year-old Laureen Rahn when she disappeared from Manchester, New Hampshire in 1980. Six weeks later, Denise Daneault, a 25-year-old woman who lived two blocks from the Rahn residence, went missing from a bar in Manchester. Daneault had been living on the same street as Rasmussen. Police and FBI 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.

Elizabeth Lamotte was 17-years-old when she disappeared from Manchester in 1984. She was not reported missing until police were seeking more information on Rasmussen in 2017 and one tipster speculated that she could have been the "Elizabeth Evans" that had been listed as his wife during his time in Manchester. However, DNA from Lamotte's relatives later proved that she was one of the victims in the Redhead murders. Lamotte had been found in Tennessee in 1985, killed about four months after her disappearance.