Four bodies in barrels
A Denver-born man is suspected in the slayings of a woman and three young girls.
A man born in Denver has become the chief suspect in a series of homicides in which the killer stowed the bodies of three young girls and a woman into 55-gallon metal barrels in New Hampshire and authorities are seeking help across the country from anyone who met him in the 1970s.
Born Terry Peder Rasmussen in Denver in 1943, the serial killer suspect was also known as Robert “Bob” Evans. Rasmussen had been sought in the disappearance of one of his girlfriends in New Hampshire and died in 2010 while serving a sentence for killing another girlfriend.
Long considered a serial killer, Rasmussen’s true identity wasn’t discovered until July.
New Hampshire authorities including Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, Manchester Police chief Enoch Willard and state police Col. Christopher Wagner have sent in-depth information about the suspect to police departments and news organizations around the country including The Denver Post.
They are trying to account for Rasmussen’s whereabouts between 1974 and the time he moved to New Hampshire in the late 1970s. Rasmussen is known to have lived in Colorado, Idaho, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, Hawaii and California. He also was known to travel with various women and children. Police say he was an electrician and worked for oil and gas companies, and also the big industrial construction company Brown & Root.
New Hampshire authorities are attempting to identify the women and children to determine whether they could be the victims discovered in barrels in their state.
Investigators found the barrels containing the remains of three children and a woman in New Hampshire in 1985 and 2000. All of four people are believed to have died between 1978 and 1984.
Rasmussen also is believed responsible for the disappearance of his girlfriend, Denise Beaudin, from Manchester, N.H., shortly after Thanksgiving in 1981. Rasmussen later abandoned Beaudin’s infant daughter in June of 1986 after moving to Santa Cruz County, Calif.
The first murdered child, known by investigators as Jane Doe 1985, was discovered in a barrel off a wooded trail near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, N.H. The girl, believed to have been between the ages of 8 and 11, was found in an industrial barrel with a woman estimated to be between 22 and 23, also called Jane Doe 1985.
The youngest victim, a girl identified only as Jane Doe 2000, who was between the ages of 1 and
was confirmed to be related to both 1985 Jane Does, according to DNA testing. DNA also confirmed that the woman and two girls were related on their maternal side of their family. Advanced forensic testing suggest that the three related victims were possibly born and raised together in New Hampshire or one of the surrounding states.
A fourth victim, a girl between the ages of 2 and 4, was found in the same barrel as the youngest victim. Also known as Jane Doe 2000, she was not related to the woman or the two other children. DNA testing shows Rasmussen was her father. Other testing suggests she was raised in northern Vermont or New Hampshire.
Rasmussen lived in both Denver and Phoenix with his family until he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served until 1967. He married and had four children. He became estranged from his family and they say they last saw him around Christmas of 1974, when he arrived at his wife’s home in Payson, Ariz., to visit the children.
At the time, Rasmussen was in the company of an unidentified female, and stated that he was living in the Casa Del Rey Apartments in Ingleside, Texas.
In 2002, Rasmussen’s girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun, disappeared from Richmond, Calif. The following year, Rasmussen was convicted in Jun’s murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He died in prison in 2010.
At the time of his death, Rasmussen was going by the alias of Evans. DNA testing last month deter3, mined that Evans was actually Rasmussen.
He had also used aliases including Curtis Mayo Kimball, Gordon Jenson and Lawrence William Vanner.