Terry Peder Rasmussen

Terry Peder Rasmussen (December 23, 1943 – December 28, 2010) was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was convicted of one murder, and linked to at least five more in a series of crimes that stretched across the contiguous United States between 1978 and 2002.

Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as the Chameleon Killer.

Terry Peder Rasmussen was born on December 23, 1943, in Denver, Colorado.

Growing up in Arizona, he attended North High School in Phoenix until dropping out during his sophomore year in 1960.

He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1961, where he was trained as an electrician, and served until he was discharged in 1967.

Rasmussen married in 1968 and lived with his wife and four children in Phoenix and Redwood City, California.

His family later recalled that he was physically abusive, burning one of his sons with cigarette butts.

Rasmussen lived in a number of states including Arizona, Colorado, California, Idaho, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Oregon and Hawaii, finally settling in New Hampshire sometime in the late 1970s.

It was reported that he was known to travel with women and children.

He often worked as an electrician for oil and gas companies.

While living in Manchester, New Hampshire, Rasmussen lived under the alias "Bob Evans" and worked at the Waumbec Mill.

Rasmussen's wife left him with the children in 1975 after he was arrested for aggravated assault.

The family last saw Rasmussen around December 1975 or 1976, when he showed up at their home with an unidentified woman.

Rasmussen is the prime suspect in the unsolved Bear Brook murders, which took place in New Hampshire sometime between 1978 and 1980.

The divorce was finalized in 1978.

In 1978, Rasmussen dated Honeychurch, who had been married twice and had a daughter from each marriage.

Honeychurch was last seen in La Puente, California, on Thanksgiving day of that year.

After an argument with her family, Honeychurch left with Rasmussen and her two daughters, six-year-old Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and one-year-old Sarah Lynn McWaters.

They were never seen by their family again.

He was arrested three times in 1980 for writing a bad check, theft, and diverting electric current.

A woman named "Elizabeth Evans" was listed as his wife during his time in New Hampshire; this woman is believed to be Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, the adult Bear Brook victim, but her identity has never been confirmed.

Throughout the early 1980s, Rasmussen remained in possession of Beaudin's daughter, whom he called Lisa, and posed as her father.

In 1981, Rasmussen left New Hampshire with girlfriend Denise Beaudin, who subsequently disappeared; he is suspected of killing her.

Rasmussen also abducted Beaudin's daughter and fled to California.

While using the pseudonym Bob Evans, Rasmussen dated Denise Beaudin, who disappeared from Manchester after Thanksgiving 1981 with her six-month-old daughter.

Authorities believe that Rasmussen killed Beaudin somewhere in California, although her body has never been found.

Beaudin was not reported missing at the time as her family believed she left town due to financial reasons.

The bodies of Elizabeth Honeychurch, her two daughters, and his own daughter were discovered in two barrels in the Allenstown area between 1985 and 2000.

On November 10, 1985, the bodies of Honeychurch and Vaughn were found in a barrel in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.

They were found to have died of blunt force trauma to their heads.

Investigators believe all four victims were killed at around the same time, and that the second barrel was already there in 1985 but was overlooked due to its distance from the first.

He was arrested in Cypress, California, in 1985 under the name "Curtis Kimball" for charges of driving under the influence and endangering the welfare of a child but failed to appear in court.

He abused and molested the child before deserting her in 1986 and was subsequently imprisoned on child abandonment charges.

On May 9, 2000, a second barrel was found about 100 yards from the location of the first, containing the body of McWaters and an unidentified child aged between two and four years old.

Rasmussen died in prison after being convicted of the 2002 murder of another girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun.

Although the Allenstown barrels were discovered during his lifetime, Rasmussen was not linked until 2017, when DNA profiling connected him to the crime.

Subsequent investigations led to three of the Bear Brook victims being identified; the identity of the fourth victim, Rasmussen's daughter, remains unknown.

The identities of Honeychurch and her two children were not known until they were confirmed by DNA profiling in 2019.

, the third child remains unidentified, but authorities were able to confirm that Rasmussen was her biological father.

Rasmussen died before being linked to the Bear Brook crimes, and thus was never charged or tried in court.