On September 7, authorities announced that they had identified the final victim of the Bear Brook murders. The young victim was known for years as “Jane Allenstown Doe 2000.” She was one of the four victims of the Chameleon Killer.
In 1985 and then in 2000, the bodies of a woman and three children were discovered in drum barrels in the New Hampshire woods. Authorities tried to identify the victims for years.
Most recently, genetic genealogy was used to identify the final victim as Rea Rasmussen, who was only two to four years old when she died.
Rea was born in 1976 in Orange County, California. She was the biological daughter of Terry Peder Rasmussen, who became known as the Chameleon Killer for his tendency to use multiple aliases.
He was responsible for the four Bear Brook murders and is suspected of having killed at least one more person. He was convicted of the murder of his common-law wife in 2002 and died in prison in 2010.
The murders came to light in 1985, when hunters encountered the remains of a woman and a young girl in a 55-gallon drum barrel in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.
Then, on May 9, 2000, a New Hampshire state trooper uncovered a second barrel near where the first one was found. The second barrel held the remains of two young girls.
According to the FBI, the two girls were killed in the late 1970s or early 1980s and were left inside the barrel. It was one of the first cases to use genetic genealogy to identify victims.
DNA testing revealed the identities of three of the victims in 2019. They were Marlyse Honeychurch and her daughters, Marie Vaughn and Sarah McWaters.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
They were last seen in California in 1978. However, authorities could not determine who the fourth victim was or how she was connected to the other three.
New Hampshire State Police started working with the DNA Doe Project in 2024. They identified Pepper Reed as Rea’s mother. As a result, they were able to identify Rea. Pepper Reed was born in 1952 and has not been seen since the late 1970s.
This month, DNA testing confirmed that Jane Allenstown Doe 2000 was none other than Rea Rasmussen. Her father, Terry, used several different aliases in New Hampshire and California.
He would disappear and reappear with a whole new identity. First, he was Curtis Kimball, and then Gordon Jenson, Larry Vanner, and Bob Evans.
He is one of the only serial killers who killed people he knew and had relationships with. He is suspected in other missing persons cases and murders.
Investigators are still looking into the disappearance of Pepper Reed. It is believed that she may have also been a victim of the Chameleon Killer.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
