The Bear Brook Murders
Four victims were found in barrels near Bear Brook State Park in 1985 and 2000. Genetic genealogy restored the names of Marlyse Honeychurch, Marie Vaughn and Sarah McWaters in 2019, and Rea Rasmussen in 2025. Authorities identify Terry Peder Rasmussen as responsible, but he died in prison in 2010 and was never tried for the Bear Brook deaths.
- Period
- 1985–2025
- Location
- Allenstown, New Hampshire
- Case status
- All victims identified · suspect never tried
Two barrels, fifteen years apart
In November 1985, a hunter found a steel barrel near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. It contained the remains of an adult woman and a young girl. Investigators could not identify them. The location was searched, but the case stalled without names.
In 2000, a new state trooper returned to the area and found a second barrel only a few hundred feet away. It held the remains of two more girls. Evidence indicated that all four deaths were homicides and that the victims had been connected, but standard missing-person comparisons produced no match.
The man known by many names
A separate New Hampshire disappearance eventually pointed towards a man who had used the name Bob Evans. Denise Beaudin vanished after Thanksgiving 1981 with Evans and her infant daughter. The child was later found alive in California, living with him under another identity.
Under the name Curtis Kimball, he was convicted in California of murdering Eunsoon Jun and died in prison in 2010. DNA later showed that he was the father of one of the unidentified Bear Brook girls. Genetic genealogy established that his real name was Terry Peder Rasmussen.
Three names restored in 2019
Genealogists used DNA from the adult woman and two of the children to build family trees. In June 2019, New Hampshire authorities identified them as Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch and her daughters Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and Sarah Lynn McWaters. They had last been seen with Rasmussen in California in 1978.
The identification depended on public records, relatives’ DNA and a volunteer’s work connecting an old online message to the missing family. It showed that identifying victims could reorganise an investigation even when the suspected killer was already dead.
Rea Rasmussen identified in 2025
The fourth victim, long called the “middle child,” was not biologically related to Marlyse and her daughters. In 2024, the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit and the DNA Doe Project began a renewed genetic-genealogy effort.
In September 2025, authorities announced her name: Rea Rasmussen, born in 1976, the daughter of Terry Rasmussen and Pepper Reed. Records and DNA confirmed the identification. Reed has not been seen since the late 1970s, and authorities continue to investigate what happened to her.
Solved identities, no Bear Brook trial
New Hampshire officials state that Rasmussen was responsible for the four Bear Brook murders. His relationship to Rea, his travels with Marlyse and her daughters, and the wider record of aliases and killings form the official conclusion. He was never prosecuted for these deaths because he died before the victims were identified.
All four people found near Bear Brook now have their names. The investigation remains significant not because every question ended, but because investigators moved from unidentified victims to family histories, exposed a serial offender’s hidden identity and opened a continuing search for other people who may have crossed his path.
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