Image via New Hampshire Attorney General
Terry Rasmussen killed at least a half-dozen women and girls, authorities suspect.
Investigators tracking a serial killer's confusing past say he may have spent part of the 1970s in St. Louis.
For decades, Terry Peder Rasmussen rambled across the country, switching out names as he slipped from town to town. He was convicted in 2003 of killing his girlfriend in California and died seven years later in prison. But investigators are still chasing a string of unanswered questions.
And now authorities say a new breakthrough in a 35-year-old New Hampshire mystery suggests Rasmussen murdered at least a half-dozen women and young girls, including his own daughter. They're trying piece together his movements through the years — which includes looking into his claim that he once worked as an electrician at Reece Electrical INC. in St. Louis, according to a news release from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Retracing his steps has been tricky. Rasmussen lived in California and Arizona with his first wife until she took the couple's four kids and left him in 1973 or 1974, authorities say. Family members told investigators they only saw him once after the split, in 1974, when he showed up unannounced with an unidentified woman. He told them he was living in Ingleside, Texas.
Image via New Hampshire Attorney General
Murderer Terry Rasmussen, shown in 1969, may have worked as an electrician in St. Louis, authorities say.
His life during the early and mid-1970s is part of the mystery investigators are hoping to solve. He showed up in the late 1970s in New Hampshire, using the name Robert "Bob" Evans. Police suspect he killed three girls and one woman while living there. The bodies of the woman and one of the girls were discovered in 1985 in Allentown, New Hampshire. Investigators discovered the other two girls in 2000.
All four victims were killed between 1978 and 1984 and stuffed into barrels, authorities say. DNA showed he was the father of one of the girls, who was between two and four years old. The woman and the other girls, who were all related to each other, are still unidentified.
Investigators have never found his old girlfriend, Denise Beaudin, who disappeared in 1981 along with Rasmussen and her six-month-old daughter. Police now suspect he killed Beaudin. He allegedly abandoned the little girl, alive, six years later in California.
Part of what has made all this so confusing is Rasmussen's ability to assume false identities. He was going by Curtis Kimball in 2003 when he was convicted of killing a new girlfriend named Eunsoon Jun in California. He used at least five names over the years.
It was only after a son provided a DNA sample that authorities were able to confirm that Rasmussen was the same man known in New Hampshire as Robert Evans — a man who was their suspect in the four barrel killings and disappearance of Beaudin. Now that they've made the connection, investigators are hoping the rest of the pieces fall into place.
They're asking anyone with information about Rasmussen or any of the murders to contact any of these agencies:
New Hampshire State Police-Cold Case Unit 603 223-3856 [email protected]
Manchester Police Department 603-668-8711 [email protected]
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) [email protected]
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