Where is Laureen Rahn?

      No Comments on Where is Laureen Rahn?

For more than four decades, Laureen Rahn’s disappearance had puzzled anyone who’s investigated it. With each new piece of information, there are only more questions. Did she run away? Was she abducted or trafficked? Is her case connected to other missing local women or her serial killer neighbor? In this episode, we’ll examine all the mysterious clues and theories, hopefully drawing us closer to a resolution.

Laureen Rahn was born April 3, 1966 in Manchester, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. Her mother, Judith Swanson, and her unnamed father divorced when Laureen was still an infant. Judith’s parents lived in Hollywood, Florida for a time, and Judith took Laureen to live in neighboring Miami in 1970. When they moved back up to Manchester six years later, when Laureen was 10, they rented the third-floor unit of a triple-decker apartment building at 289 Merrimack Street.    

Manchester is New Hampshire’s largest city, a little more than an hour’s drive north of Boston, with a population of around 90,000 when Laureen lived there. It was built around the Merrimack River that runs through downtown. Like any major city, Manchester has seen its ups and downs, and the area where Laureen lived, just east of the river, is sometimes described as a rough one. The industrial, working-class city was also home to serial killer Terry Rasmussen, whose case we already covered on our podcast. He has some interesting connections to Laureen’s case, and we’ll dig into those later. 

In the spring of 1980, Laureen was an eighth grader at Parkside Junior High School getting good grades. Judith has 11 siblings, so Laureen had quite a few aunts in the area who helped take care of her. They said Laureen was having troubles, running with the “wrong crowd,” spending a lot of time “in the streets,” smoking weed, and drinking alcohol. Judith said that she and Laureen argued like a normal mom and teen daughter but had a close relationship overall. 

Home alone

On Saturday, April 26, 1980, three weeks after Laureen’s 14th birthday, Judith left to attend a tennis match out of town with her boyfriend. This was a normal excursion since Judith’s boyfriend was a professional tennis player. Usually, Laureen joined her mother on these all-day outings, but she asked to stay home this time and Judith agreed. That morning was the last time Judith saw her only child. 

Family members popped in throughout the day to check on Laureen. She left the apartment at least once to visit the corner store, a popular hangout spot for local teenagers. Some of Laureen’s friends would later tell her mother that they saw Laureen restocking beer and wine coolers that day, and Judith thinks she did that in exchange for purchasing alcohol underage. “People were more apt to look the other way,” Judith said, reflecting on the attitude toward teen drinking at the time. 

Later that evening, Laureen entertained two friends at her apartment, one male, the other female. It’s reported that the three friends drank a total of six beers and one bottle of wine throughout the night. Recently, Laureen’s aunt (Judith’s sister-in-law), JoBeth Swanson, told a local news outlet that the female friend was Laureen’s age while the male friend was 21, about seven years older than the two girls. Law enforcement have never revealed the identity or ages of the two friends who were with Laureen that night. 

Last known movements

At about 12:30 am, Laureen’s friends said they heard noises in the hallway and assumed it was Laureen’s mother returning home. Wanting to avoid trouble, Laureen’s male friend left out the back door. He later told police that he heard Laureen lock the back door behind him after he left. Police never considered this man to be a suspect in Laureen’s disappearance, but they haven’t shared exactly why he was cleared. 

Five years later, in 1985, that same man committed suicide. According to Laureen’s family, Manchester police shared with them that his suicide note said “he couldn’t take it anymore.” They are suspicious that his suicide might be related to Laureen’s case, despite the official clearance. Did he feel guilty because he did something to Laureen or knew what happened to her? 

One of Laureen’s neighbors also heard voices approaching her apartment at around 12:30 am the night she went missing, as well as the sound of someone leaving down the back stairs, and “then silence.” Laureen’s friend said that they went to sleep in Laureen’s bed after they realized the noises weren’t her mother coming home. Shortly after lying down, Laureen went to sleep on the living room sofa instead. 

Horrific homecoming

Most sources state that Judith returned home with her boyfriend around 1:15 am, about 45 minutes after the noises Laureen’s friends and neighbor heard. At least one source has her arriving as early as 12:45 am, a half hour sooner. Judith immediately felt uneasy as she climbed the three flights of stairs to her top floor apartment as the hallways were pitch black. She would later discover that the light bulbs had been unscrewed from their sockets. 

Judith’s concern increased when she found her front door unlocked. She went straight to Laureen’s bedroom and saw a sleeping figure, assuming in the darkness that it was her daughter. Any relief Judith felt was short lived when her boyfriend noticed that the back door was open. Judith immediately woke Laureen to question her, only to discover that it was Laureen’s friend in the bed. She told Judith that Laureen should be sleeping on the couch but was too drunk to remember anything else that had happened. 

Search begins

Judith and her boyfriend rushed through the apartment looking for Laureen or any sign of where she could be. Nothing indicated that a struggle took place. Nothing was missing. Laureen’s purse, money, clothing and all other personal belongings were still there. 

Next, Judith called family members to see if Laureen was with them. Laureen was the type to always leave a note or communicate her whereabouts somehow rather than let her mom worry. Having turned up nothing, Judith, her boyfriend, and local family members began driving around the streets of Manchester in search of Laureen. At around 3:45 am, Judith saw a manned police cruiser and flagged it down to report her daughter missing.

Laureen was a small girl, just 5’4” and 90 lbs with brown or auburn hair and blue eyes. On the day she went missing, Laureen had been wearing a white v-neck sweater with a blue plaid blouse underneath, jeans, brown shoes, a gold heart-shaped ring, and a silver/blue necklace. Authorities have DNA and dental records available. To date, Laureen’s profile has been compared to at least 20 Jane Doe bodies without finding a match. 

Runaway?

For the first several weeks, Manchester police believed that Laureen Rahn was a runaway who would soon return. They saw the teenage daughter of a single mom who had fallen in with the city’s rougher crowd as she struggled to adjust. “She hated being back in New Hampshire,” Judith admitted. Still, Laureen’s family insisted that she was a good kid in a rough patch who had no reason to disappear. And if she had planned on running away, why would she leave all the things she needed behind? 

The official theory changed as the weeks and months dragged on with no sign of Laureen, other than a few unconfirmed sightings. Police came to believe that Laureen stepped out of her apartment voluntarily and planned to return quickly but met with foul play. Manchester detective lieutenant Tony Fowler, who retired in 2000, believes that at least one person interviewed early on didn’t share everything they know about Laureen’s disappearance. “I still believe that some acquaintance of hers knows what happened to this day,” he said recently. 

Frustrated with the lack of leads and feeling like her daughter was being treated like a runaway instead of an endangered child, Judith called the FBI in Concord. They couldn’t help her, citing no evidence of a kidnapping. However, the agent Judith spoke with referred her to two former FBI agents turned private investigators. Judith hired them, but the trail went cold for them too after a few months. Judith consulted psychics and considered any theory that came her way, accepting whatever help she could get in finding her daughter. 

California calls

Investigators’ biggest lead came from a surprise source in November 1980, about six months after Laureen disappeared. The source was Judith’s October phone bill, on which appeared charges for three calls to and from phone numbers in California that Judith didn’t recognize. All three calls were placed on October 1, 1980 within 10 to 15 minutes of each other. 

Judith was perplexed, since she had no connection to California, but hopeful, convinced that these calls had something to do with her daughter. Laureen loved to sing and dance, had dreams of becoming an actress, and “liked the warm weather” when she lived in Florida. In the slim chance that she had planned to run away, Judith thought, going to California made some sense. 

At the time, you could charge payphone calls to your home phone service provider by making a third party call. To do that, you would have to know the home phone number to bill and, depending on your provider, you may also need a phone card with a unique code or a PIN to authorize the charge before the call would go through. It was possible, though not common, for scammers to charge calls to random phone numbers. 

After reporting the phone calls to police, Judith told them she was heading to California to search for Laureen. Police advised her not to – still working on their runaway theory, they reasoned that Laureen might contact her mother around the holidays. They also needed time to investigate the calls further. 

They determined that two of the calls were from a payphone outside a Santa Monica motel to a hotel in Santa Ana. The third call was from a payphone across the street from the Santa Monica motel where the first two calls originated from, and its destination was a teen hotline based in Westminster. Santa Ana and Westminster are neighboring California towns, about one hour’s drive south of Santa Monica. A physician answered the hotline phone number, but he denied any knowledge of Laureen or the October 1 phone call. 

Silent caller

In 1981, Judith began receiving suspicious phone calls at her home, always around 3:45 am and usually more often around Christmas time. Unfortunately, we don’t have details about where the calls originated, when they were made, or exactly how many there were. The caller never spoke, and the calls didn’t stop until Judith moved to Florida in the late 1980s and changed her phone number. At least one other family member and one childhood friend of Laureen’s received strange calls that they believe were from her. 

Oddly, detective Lucas Hobbs, currently assigned to Manchester’s cold cases, says none of these phone calls are in the official police file for Laureen’s case. He surmises that Judith’s private investigator looked into the calls and didn’t share their findings with Manchester police at the time. Yet local newspapers reported on the mysterious phone calls back in 1980, stating that Judith informed police and Manchester detectives followed up on the leads. 

Trafficking victim?

There was little activity on Laureen’s case until 1985, when youth advocate Karole Jensen either offered or agreed to help. Karole is the founder of Wings for Children, an organization that provides transportation and other services to children in need, especially those experiencing abuse. Karole obtained the hotline number from Judith’s 1980 phone bill and called it. The hotline was still active, and the same physician answered. 

With the passage of time, the doctor was willing to provide a little more detail, but it only raised suspicions. He claimed that he was a plastic surgeon. Regarding the phone call associated with Laureen’s disappearance? Yes, he and his wife occasionally helped young women, many of them runaways. And yes, he vaguely remembered a girl from New Hampshire visiting them around the time Laureen went missing. 

When Karole Jensen pressed him for further details, he told her that a woman named Annie Sprinkle might know more. Annie was a pornographic actress at the time pursuing a career in sex education. One unsubstantiated theory at the time was that Annie, in coordination with the doctor and his wife, might have helped Laureen break into the porn industry underage, similar to what happened to Traci Lords at the same age, in the same area, in 1984. 

All of this information is missing from the official police file. The doctor running the hotline, his wife, and the hotline itself were never identified. It looks like he’s never been cleared or investigated further. However, it appears that someone looked into Annie Sprinkle, whether it was Manchester police, Karole Jensen, and/or Judith’s private investigator, and determined that she wasn’t connected to Laureen’s disappearance. 

In 1986, Karole Jensen located the California motels from Judith Swanson’s 1980 telephone bill. Rumor has it that a man known as “Dr. Z” used the Santa Monica location to film child pornography. Virtually all sources that mention “Dr. Z” say that he was never confirmed to be the same man as the hotline physician. A more recent article states that Judith and her private investigator believe that the hotline doctor and Dr. Z are one and the same. For now, it’s yet another mystery in this puzzling case. 

Continued search

Most of Laureen’s family firmly believe that she is still alive, especially after the strange phone calls. “It’s a mother’s instinct,” Judith says. “I’ve never, ever felt her passed away in my heart.” She’s convinced that the three California calls were from Laureen, indicating that her daughter was alive for at least a few months after she disappeared. Maybe Laureen didn’t have money to place the calls, or she was giving her mother a clue to her whereabouts. 

When Laureen’s family gives interviews around the anniversary of her disappearance, they address her as well as the public. They hope that she hears their words and remembers that she’s still loved. Judith maintains that Laureen didn’t simply run away: “I just can’t believe she would never contact me. That hurts the most.” 

In spite of some apparent missteps, it seems that Manchester police have always been just as determined to find Laureen. The police captain at the time of her disappearance, Ken Murby, looked for Laureen on his personal time, often accompanied by his wife. After he retired, Ken Murby said that Laureen’s disappearance “was one of the voids in my life, and someday before I die, I hope somebody finds the answer.” He continued his personal search until his death in 1995.

Loose ends

Since there’s so much we don’t know about this case – and won’t know as long as it’s an open investigation – there are dozens of theories about what happened to Laureen. After researching this case and most of these theories, I’m left with the following key points and burning questions:

  • I’m most suspicious of the two friends who were with Laureen that night, especially because some of Laureen’s family and later investigators feel that way too.
  • Laureen disappearing the first time she chose not to go out of town with her mother is quite a coincidence, leading me to believe that she either planned to leave that day or that the person who took her knew they had an opportunity.
  • The phone calls Laureen’s family received for years could have come from a sick prankster, Laureen, or the person who took her. If it was Laureen, as many of her family members believe, then why didn’t she speak when her family picked up? The only reason I can think of is that Laureen wanted reassurance that her family was still out there but was too ashamed of what happened or afraid of what would happen if she revealed herself.
  • Who is Laureen’s father, and why isn’t he discussed or considered a suspect? We know Laureen was struggling to adjust and wanted to leave Manchester. We don’t know if she wanted to reconnect with her father. If he kidnapped Laureen, whether she went willingly or not, he might have isolated her and threatened her about staying in touch with her family. I could also see Laureen’s friend covering for her if she thought Laureen was choosing to go with her dad.
  • Finally, why aren’t the phone calls and information about the hotline doctor in the official police file? Even if this was bungled back in the 80s, it’s been reported for over 40 years and should be included or officially investigated by now. 

1984: Shirley McBride

As we sift through the various theories, we must also consider that Laureen Rahn’s disappearance might not be an isolated incident. The Oak Hill Research blog analyzed numerous other unsolved cold cases in the region, and two have striking links to the circumstances of Laureen’s disappearance. 

The first we’ll look at is 15-year-old Shirley McBride, who was last seen around 9:30 pm on Friday, July 13, 1984 leaving the apartment she shared with her older sister in Concord, New Hampshire. Like Laureen, police theorized that Shirley was a runaway even though she left all her money, clothes, and other personal belongings behind. Shirley’s family accused police of not investigating her case fully because they had a negative perception of her. 

Like Laureen, Shirley started having problems leading up to her disappearance, like hanging out with a “tough crowd” who introduced her to drugs, alcohol, and dangerous situations. Shirley was living on the west side of Manchester when these problems started, about two miles away from Laureen’s apartment. Laureen was three years older, but it’s possible that the two girls knew of each other or had mutual friends. 

The prime suspect in Shirley’s case, which is now being treated as a homicide investigation, is Walter Davis. He died in 2003. In 1984, Walter, then 26 years old, lived with family in Merrimack and often stayed with his father in Concord. In July 1984, after Shirley went missing, Walter’s family caught him trying to burn a woman’s bib overalls and cotton shirt. Walter confessed that he had raped a girl and discarded her body in the river, prompting his family to turn the clothing over to police. Walter told detectives that he came across the clothing by chance and brought them home for his sister. 

Investigators collected DNA from Shirley’s family to test against the clothing evidence, but there’s been no word on results. Shirley’s family says that police privately told them Walter Davis was their prime suspect while publicly pushing a runaway theory. Her family doesn’t even know if police ever searched the river for her remains. If Walter is responsible, was Shirley his only victim? 

1980: Denise Daneault

Denise Daneault lived in an apartment just two blocks from Laureen Rahn and disappeared six weeks after her. Denise was last seen at about 1:30 am on Sunday, June 8, 1980, “just days before her 26th birthday.” Two men who talked to Denise when she was leaving a downtown Manchester club that night said she was headed to a party at a housing project on Manchester’s west side, in a neighborhood known as Rock Rimmon. This is the same area of town where Shirley McBride lived at the time and within 10 minutes of Laureen Rahn’s apartment. 

Denise’s roommate insisted that it was “highly unusual” for her to leave without notifying someone and that she would never leave her children behind. Some theorized that Denise accidentally overdosed at the party she attended. Police’s official stance on Denise’s case is that there is “no evidence at this time to support a theory of foul play.” 

When she disappeared, Denise was experiencing custody issues with her 26-year-old ex-husband, Paul Daneault, over their four- and six-year-old sons. Some are suspicious of Paul Daneault, citing financial motives from their divorce and child custody battles. P aul’s history of drug dealing could also play a role in whatever happened to Denise. In 1999, Paul was arrested in the “largest heroin bust in recent history in Manchester.” He was still living in Denise’s apartment at the time, having moved in after she disappeared. 

The Chameleon Killer

There wasn’t much movement on Denise’s case until law enforcement discovered that serial killer Terry Rasmussen was living “just a few doors down” from her in Manchester when she went missing. He was using the alias “Bob Evans” and had an unidentified spouse (at least for a period of time) known as “Elizabeth Evans.” In 2016 and 2017, DNA connected Rasmussen to bodies discovered in nearby Allenstown, New Hampshire back in 1985. 

Also in 2017, police received a tip to search the woods behind the Kimball Street housing project where Denise was headed the night she disappeared. All three cadaver dogs used in the search focused on a single site in the woods a few hundred yards down an incline. Digging commenced, and the search ended after two days. Police returned to the same area six months later but haven’t revealed if they uncovered any evidence during either search. 

There are so many curious connections here. First, this search area was Shirley McBride’s neighborhood until she moved in 1983. Even stranger is that it’s on Kimball Street, and when Rasmussen moved to California after Manchester, he changed his name to “Curtis Kimball.” We know he was in California by March 1984, at least three months before Shirley went missing, but what a coincidence. 

Could it still indicate a connection between Denise and Rasmussen? The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office insisted at the time of the searches that “there’s no evidentiary connection between” Denise’s disappearance and Rasmussen. That doesn’t stop people from speculating though, especially since the two were neighbors and because Denise fit Rasmussen’s profile of a newly single mom who could use a helping hand. 

Could Rasmussen have anything to do with Laureen Rahn’s disappearance? He would have been about 37 when she went missing in 1980, and he was last seen in the area around Thanksgiving 1981 with Denise Beaudin. Laureen lived a couple blocks from Rasmussen, and her apartment was on his way to work. Laureen’s grandparents, on her mother Judith’s side, lived in Allenstown, near the state park where Rasmussen disposed of his victims’ bodies. Judith, also a single mom, said Denise Daneault and her daughter even looked alike, despite their age difference.

There’s an odd California connection as well, thinking back to the October 1, 1980 phone calls Laureen’s mother received. Rasmussen was in La Puente, California in the fall of 1978 with Marlyse Honeychurch before relocating to New Hampshire. La Puente is about a half hour south of Santa Ana and Westminster, California, and an hour southwest of Santa Monica. When Terry resurfaced in Los Alamitos, California in 1984, he was only about 10 minutes east of Westminster.

Four decades later

It’s been 43 years since Laureen Rahn and Denise Daneault disappeared. Laureen would be 57 and Denise 69 today. Denise’s two boys are in their late 40s now. Shirley McBride disappeared 39 years ago and would be 54 years old. 

Laureen’s mother, Judith, is now 77 years old, retired, and living in Florida, still searching for her daughter. “People can deal with death, but when you don’t know what happened, it eats at you every day,” she says of what she’s been through. 

Shirley McBride’s older sister Robin says that, even though she has accepted her sister is dead, the need to find her and learn what happened still weighs on her. “Somebody needs to know. After I go … I’ve got one brother … but there’s nobody else to look for her. If I don’t keep pushing now, there is no one who is going to ask after that. It’s important to me that somebody knows what happened to her.”

With that in mind, if you have any information about Laureen’s or Denise’s disappearances, call the Manchester Police Department at 603-668-8711. For Shirley, contact the Concord Regional Crimeline at 603-226-3100.

Additional resources