Terry Rasmussen – The Chameleon Killer

Two separate mysteries all tied to one man who went by many names.  Listen to the story of serial killer Terry Rasmussen who died under the name Curtis Kimball.  This is a twisted tale of false identities, a living Jane Doe and the Bear Brook Four with one victim yet to be identified and one still missing.

Location

This episode crisscrosses the country from the states of New Hampshire and California.  In New Hampshire, we will focus on the town of Manchester. It is located in Hillsborough County in the southern part of the state.   New Hampshire itself was established in 1629 by European settlers on land originally inhabited by the Abenaki Indigenous people. California borders the Pacific Ocean along its western coast.  California’s original land-dwellers belonged to over 100 Indigenous tribes. Still, European explorers from Spain and England were the ones that named California after the mystical island populated by Amazonian warriors, sound familiar?  They believed that Baja California might have been the mystical Greek island depicted in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s romance novel Las Sergas de Esplandian.  

No Contest

In 2003, in Richmond California, Lawrence William Vanner who went by Larry pleaded no contest to murdering his common-law wife, Eunsoon Jun the previous year.  Jun was working as a chemist for the biotech company Syntex when the pair met at a local Korean restaurant where Larry was doing some repair work.  He worked as a handyman of sorts. Jun also needed some carpentry work done at her home so she hired him.  The pair instantly connected with Jun introducing Larry to her family in December of 1999.  Jun’s family might have been a little unsure of Larry. However, they all agreed that Jun seemed to have fallen hard for the handyman.  In 2001, the couple would unofficially marry in a small backyard ceremony.  

Larry soon moved into Jun’s Richmond home. That is when family and friends realized that they were not having contact with Jun as much as they did before.  By June 2002, contact was cut off completely. Whenever Jun’s friends would call or stop by Larry always seemed to have an answer as to why Jun was unavailable.  Excuses ranged from Jun being out of town caring for her sick mother or checking on one of their rental properties to her no longer wanting to be friends.  

Soft Spoken, Polite and Intelligent

One of Jun’s friends had had enough of the excuses and felt something just wasn’t right so they went to the police about their concerns.  Detective Roxane Gruenheid of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office was assigned to the case.  Detective Gruenheid and her partner went to the couple’s home on Bernhard Avenue.  They asked Larry to come down to the station to answer some questions which he did voluntarily. Detective Gruenheid would later describe Larry as soft-spoken, polite, and intelligent.  Larry’s biggest problem seemed to be he wasn’t being very cooperative with them in terms of answering their questions and he kept changing his story.  Which is a red flag.  Another red flag is while at the station the police discovered that Larry well, wasn’t Larry Vanner at all.  A fingerprint search pulls up a match to a Curtis Kimball from a child abandonment case from 1985.  

Kitty Litter

Detective Gruenheid and her partner returned to the home the couple shared.  Upon searching the basement crawl space they discovered a 250-pound pile of cat litter that was about 2 feet tall and five feet around.  They also found Jun’s mummified remains that had been dismembered under all that kitty litter.  Eunsoon Jun had died from blunt force trauma to her head.  Larry Vanner a.k.a. Curtis Kimball was arrested for Jun’s murder.

In 2003, Kimball stunned a California courtroom when he stood up and plead guilty to murdering his common-law wife.  He was sentenced to 15 years to life.  Detective Gruenheid felt that Kimball’s sudden plea was an attempt to stop her from looking into his daughter’s DNA. She had a feeling that Lisa may not be related to Kimball and if she wasn’t, who was she?

Who’s That Girl

In January 1986, Gordon Jenson had been living at the Holiday Host RV Park in Scotts Valley with his daughter, “Lisa” who was five at the time.  Katherine and Richard Decker lived in the same trailer park and befriended Lisa feeling for the little girl.  At one point, Jenson agreed to allow the Deckers to take Lisa to San Bernardino, California for two weeks to visit their daughter.  The Deckers were trying to arrange for their daughter to adopt Lisa as Jenson seemed to be looking to offload her.  

It was during that trip that the Deckers came to believe that little Lisa may have been abused by her father.  They notified authorities.  Unfortunately, the Deckers were unable to finalize Lisa’s adoption as Jenson disappeared in June 1986.  Lisa was taken into protective custody.  Lisa would later be adopted believing that Curtis Kimball was her father and that her biological mother was deceased or at least that is what her father always told her.   

Who is Larry Vanner?

In September of 1986, prints taken from the RV park matched those of Curtis Kimball. He had been arrested in May 1985 for DUI in Cypress, California. Lisa had been in the car with Kimball at the time of his arrest.  A short time later a warrant was put out for his arrest when he failed to appear in court for the DUI.  Fast forward to November 1988. Gerry Mockerman is pulled over in San Luis Obispo, California for driving a stolen car from Preston, Idaho.  Another fingerprint match would show that Gerry Mockerman and Gordon Jenson were in fact, Curtis Kimball.

Curtis Kimball was charged with child abandonment and endangering the welfare of a child. He was sentenced to three years in prison.  He would end up serving less than two years. The day after his parole in October 1990 he would again disappear.  No one knows where Kimball ended up, but he would reappear in June 1998, as Larry Vanner.  Vanner had been stopped in California and cited for not having insurance or a driver’s license.  He was not fingerprinted at the time.  

Not Lisa

A few weeks after Kimball had pleaded guilty the paternity test results came back on Lisa, who was now in her twenties,  Lisa Kimball/Jenson was not biologically related to Curtis Kimball.  Authorities also come to realize that Curtis Kimball doesn’t seem to exist before his arrest in Cypress, California in May 1985.  Detective Gruenheid contacted the San Bernardino authorities and informed them that they had a living Jane Doe case on their hands.  

Detective Peter Headly of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office was assigned to Lisa’s case in 2013.  In 2010, Curtis Kimball would die of natural causes in prison after serving seven years of his fifteen-year sentence.  Lisa still wanted to know who she was. She signed up for Ancestry.com, and got two hits on a 4th & 5th cousin.  

Detective Headly reached out to Barbara Rae-Venter, a genetic genealogist who began working on Lisa Project in 2015.  Based upon Lisa’s dental records she surmised that Lisa was born around 1981 and assumed at this time to be around 34 years old.  At Rae-Venter’s direction, Lisa also uploaded her DNA to 23andMe. This helped narrow down her region of origin, which was the United States and Canada.  

In the meantime, Detective Headly began reaching out to cousins who matched up with Lisa asking them if they would submit DNA samples. Some did and some declined.  Rea-Venter also uploaded Lisa’s DNA to GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA and asked the cousins if they were willing to upload theirs as well.  From that, she started to flesh out a family tree to find a parent or grandparent.  As more and more cousins started to be discovered more of Lisa’s tree was filled in. In all Lisa had over 200 cousin matches.

East Coast

One day in Manchester, New Hampshire, Armand Beaudin received a call from his nephew who told him he had been working with police in California on a missing person’s case.  He asked Armand to take a DNA test.  That test would reveal that Armand was Lisa’s maternal grandfather which would open the door to another mystery.

In November 1981, Denise Beaudin, 23, would visit her father Armand with her 6-month-old daughter, Dawn, and her boyfriend, Robert “Bob” Evans.  This would be the last time Armand would see his daughter or his granddaughter.  At that last Thanksgiving gathering, Denise would tell her father that she, Dawn, and Bob needed to leave town because they owed some people some money.   He wasn’t sure when they were planning on leaving. When he tried to talk with Denise about Christmas plans he found out that the couple had left leaving no trace of where they had gone.  

Denise Beaudin and her daughter were never reported as missing persons. Now, Lisa finally knew who she was and where she had come from but to this day there is no trace of Denise.  So the next mystery to figure out was who was Bob Evans?

Detective Headley decided to send a photo of Larry Vanner aka Gordon Jenson aka Curtis Kimball to the Manchester New Hampshire Police Department.  They in turn showed the photo to Armand who confirmed that Curtis Kimball was the man he knew as Bob Evans.

Bear Brook Four

So now authorities know that when Bob Evans left New Hampshire in 1981 he reappeared in March 1984 as Curtis Kimball in Los Alamitos, California.  Where he was in those two and a half years in between is uncertain. But what authorities do know is that in January 1986, Gordon Jenson was living with his daughter “Lisa” who we now know as Dawn Beaudin, in the Holiday Host RV Park.  

While Curtis Kimball was in California in the mid-80s the first of two blue 55-gallon metal drums was found on November 10, 1985. It was adjacent to the Bear Brook State Park back in Allenstown, New Hampshire. Human remains of a 23 to 33-year-old female and a 5 to 11-year-old girl were found inside.  It would be another 15 years before the second barrel would be discovered only 100 yards away from the first one.  This barrel was identical to the first except that the remains inside belonged to two young girls. One 2 to 4 years old and the other 1 to 3 years old. 

Authorities believed that all four victims died around the same time sometime between 1978 and 1981.  All four victims died of blunt force trauma to the head.  In 1985, the first two victims were buried in Allenstown Cemetery. Their tombstone read, “Here lies the mortal remains known only to GOD of a woman aged 23-33 and a girl child age 8-10 their slain bodies were found on November 10, 1985, in Bear Brook State Park.  May their souls find peace in GOD’s loving care.”

Allenstown Four

They would become known as the Bear Brook Four or Allenstown Four. Their identities would remain a mystery until June 2017. Upon discovery of the second barrel, the first victim’s remains were exhumed for DNA testing.  Authorities wanted to see if the adult remains were those of Denise Beaudin as she fit the estimated age of the victim.  DNA testing would be done on all the victims with some surprising results.

In the initial days of the investigation after both barrels had been found in early 2000, authorities ran news articles in both US and Canadian newspapers in the hopes that someone would come forward with information.  That did not happen. So in June 2013, an updated version of facial reconstruction photos was released by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.  

In 2014, DNA results would show the adult female, older child, and the youngest child were all related.  How they were related they did not know at the time.  Other forensic testing showed that the woman and children lived together in the North East United States between 2 weeks and 3 months before their deaths.  Authorities believed that all the victims had lived in the area where their bodies were found.  

Genealogy

In 2017, Barbara Rae-Venter was called upon again to help find out who the Bear Brook Four were.  It was determined that Dawn Beaudin’s DNA did not match the adult female from the first barrel.  Dawn was linked to Bob Evans and the next step was to test Bob Evans’s DNA against the four victims. In 2017, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children announced that the middle child, 2 to 4 years old, was the biological daughter of Bob Evans (aka Curtis Kimball).  

Through DNA profile mapping techniques Rae-Venter was able to build a family tree of the Bear Brook Four’s potential killer. In July 2017, DNA testing would confirm that Bob Evans’ DNA belonged to Terry Rasmussen.  Terry Rasmussen was Curtis Kimball, Gordon Jenson, Gerry Mockerman, Larry Vanner, and Bob Evans.  

The Chameleon

Terry Peder Rasmussen was born on December 23, 1943, in Colorado.  When Rasmussen was around nine his family moved to Phoenix Arizona.  Terry dropped out of North High School after his sophomore year and enlisted in the Navy.  While in the Navy Rasmussen was trained as an electrician.  He was discharged after seven years of service in 1967.  There is no record of Rasmussen’s disciplinary actions while serving in the Navy.

After the Navy, Rasmussen moved to Hawaii where his family had relocated, and worked in his family’s shoe shop.  Rasmussen would marry on July 20, 1968, and the couple would move to Phoenix in 1969.  Rasmussen worked as an electrician;  that same year he would become a father to twin girls.  In 1970, the family would move to Redwood, California where Rasmussen worked as an electrician in Palo Alto.  That same year a son would be born followed by another daughter in 1972.  In 1972, Rasmussen and his wife would separate, but reunite the following year with the family moving back to Phoenix.  

Arrested

It was in 1973, that Rasmussen was arrested for the first time in April in Maricopa County.  What those charges were are unknown.  However, in June 1975, Rasmussen was arrested again for aggravated assault.  Right after this arrest, Rasmussen’s wife and kids leave and divorce proceedings begin.  In an interview in June 2017, Rasmussen’s one daughter would report that her father was abusive.  He would put out his cigarettes on his son’s skin.

In December of 1975, Rasmussen would show up unexpectedly in Payson Arizona with an unidentified female at his wife’s home.  He tells his family that he is living in Ingleside, Texas.  This would be the last time any member of his family would see him.

In June 1978, Rasmussen got a job working for Brown & Root Company in Houston Texas. That same year his divorce was finalized, but Rasmussen’s whereabouts are unknown. What authorities now know is that in 1978/1979 Rasmussen was working for Waumbec Mills in Manchester New Hampshire only he went by the name of Bob Evans.

Criminal

In February 1980, Evans was arrested in Manchester for writing a bad check due to insufficient funds.  His next arrest came in May for theft of services.  Evans had stolen electricity.  In October he would be arrested again and charged with diverting electric current.  Authorities also know from tracing Evan’s history that he worked as an electrician/handyman at a general store located just outside of Bear Brook State Park.  The last time Evans can be found was in November 1981, when he spent Thanksgiving with his girlfriend, Denise Beaudin.  After that Bob Evans never reappears again until he is discovered in 2017 to be Terry Rasmussen.   

Amature Sleuth

Research librarian Rebekah Heath, who also has hobbies as an amateur sleuth, got involved in trying to solve the mystery of the Bear Brook Four. We still don’t know who these victims are.   Heath spent hours combing through online messaging boards looking for posts that fit the time frame of the age and location of the victims.

One day while searching a missing person message board she came across a brother looking for his half-sister, Sarah McWaters from California. She went missing in 1978, along with her mother, Maralyse Honeychurch, and younger sister, Elizabeth Vaughn.  Sarah’s half-brother, whom she never met, placed a message in 1999, on Ancestry.com to try to locate her.  Health looked for death certificates matching the names, but none were found.  Next, Heath reached out to the family through a Facebook message to ask more questions.  From that conversation, she was told that Maralyse was last seen at a Thanksgiving 1978 family gathering along with her then-boyfriend Terry Rasmussen.

Odd and Aloof

It seems that while Rae-Venter was coming to the same conclusion using DNA genealogy, Heath discovered a connection through spending countless hours on ancestry message boards, and connecting with long-lost family members.

Another amateur sleuth was Rhonda Randall. She and her brother, Scott Maxwell also devoted several years to trying to discover the identities of the Bear Brook Four.  Anything of interest Randall would pass along to authorities. In 2014, she had given the name Bob Evans to police two years before they made that connection.  

Randall interviewed Ed Gallagher who was the owner of the General Store located adjacent to Bear Brook State Park.  She had interviewed him several times before. He told her in July 2014, that he had suspicions as to who had dumped the bodies.  He claimed that it was a man who worked for him in the late 70’s or early 80’s by the name of Bob Evans.  Gallagher described him as odd and aloof and someone who never talked about his past.

Thanksgiving 1978

On Thanksgiving 1978, Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, age 24, brought her boyfriend, Terry Rasmussen to her family gathering in La Puente, California.  That day, Marlyse had gotten into an argument with her mother and left with her two daughters, Elizabeth, age 7, and Sarah, 11 months in tow.  

Honeychurch married Elizabeth’s father in June 1971 and later divorced in 1974.  That same year she would marry her second daughter’s father who was in the military as a Marine. Sarah McWaters was born in Hawaii Gardens, California. At some points in their young lives, both girls would be in the custody of their fathers, but Honeychurch would later retain custody.  

In piecing together Marlyse’s movements authorities believe that she, Rasmussen, now going by the name Bob Evans, and her daughters relocate to Allenstown, New Hampshire that same year in 1978.  Some legal documents signed after Evan’s arrests had the name Elizabeth Evans on them.  The last signature from Elizabeth Evans was signed in May 1980.  

Lost & Found

In June 2019, authorities would announce that three of the Bear Brook Four’s identities had been discovered. And in November 2019, funeral services would be held in Allenstown for Honeychurch and her daughter, Elizabeth with new headstones inscribed with their names.  Sarah would be laid to rest in Connecticut closer to her father’s family.  

There remains one mystery. That is the identity of Terry Rasmussen’s biological daughter, victim no. 4 the two to four-year-old child.  To date, no one has stepped forward claiming to be this young girl’s mother.  Through DNA testing authorities believe that the young girl was born in Texas, possibly along the Gulf Coast.  Don’t forget that in 1978, Rasmussen was living in Texas and for a time claimed to work on an oil rig.  

In January 2021, authorities in Louisiana reached out to the public asking for their help in trying to find out the identity of the unknown victim.  Rae-Venter has suggested that the mother of the child has relatives from the Pearl River County area in Mississippi.  She could be a descendent of Thomas “Deadhorse” Mitchell or William Livings, both born in the 1800s.  

Resources

• Manchester, New Hampshire – Wikipedia
• New Hampshire – Wikipedia
• California – Wikipedia
• Exclusive: The woman behind the scenes who helped capture the Golden State Killer
• Years after his death, the story of a serial killer is finally being told
• Serial killer Terry Rasmussen’s victims, known and unknown
• Mississippi relatives hold key to ID of last of 4 New Hampshire serial killer victims found in drums
• On the trail, looking for the names of four victims and, perhaps, their killer