Denise Beaudin
Denise, circa 1981; Terrance Rasmussen in 1969; Rasmussen, circa 1985; Rasmussen, circa 1990; Rasmussen circa 2002; Marlyse Honeychurch; Marie Vaughn; Sarah McWaters; Eunsoon Jun; Unidentified girl, age 2 - 4
- Missing Since 11/26/1981
- Missing From Goffstown, New Hampshire
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Sex Female
- Race White
- Age 23 years old
- Height and Weight 5'4 - 5'6, 120 - 140 pounds
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Denise has an overbite.
Details of Disappearance
Denise was last seen on November 26, 1981, when she and her boyfriend, whom she knew as Robert T. "Bob" Evans, went to eat Thanksgiving dinner with her family in Goffstown, New Hampshire. On December 1, Denise's family went to visit her at her home in the 900 block of Hayward Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. Denise lived there with Evans and her six-month-old daughter, Dawn.
No one was home when her parents stopped by, and Denise's family never heard from her again. Because the couple had been having financial problems, Denise's family initially assumed they'd left on their own.
Photos of "Evans" are posted with this case summary. He used numerous alias names throughout his life and multiple dates of birth, ranging between 1936 and 1952.
In August 2017, Evans was identified as Terrance Peder Rasmussen, who was born in Colorado in 1943. He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, dropped out of high school after his sophomore year, and enlisted in the Navy in 1961. During his time in service he worked as an electrician on naval bases across the western U.S., as well as in Okinawa, Japan.
After his discharge in 1967, Rasmussen moved to Hawaii, married and had four children. He and his wife lived in Hawaii, Arizona and California during their marriage. His wife took the children and left him in 1973, and he dropped out of their lives; they last saw him in Payson, Arizona in 1975 or 1976 when he unexpectedly arrived at their home. He was accompanied by an unidentified woman at the time and said he was living in Ingleside, Texas.
Rasmussen's family never heard from him again. Investigators know he was working in Houston, Texas in June 1978, and that same year he called a friend in Arizona and asked to borrow some money. He said he was working on a Texas oil rig at the time.
He surfaced in New Hampshire in 1978 or 1979, using the Bob Evans alias and working as an electrician at the Waumbec Mills in Manchester. He was a skilled electrician and mechanic, but became violent under the influence of alcohol. In 1980, he was arrested in New Hampshire and listed his spouse as Elizabeth Evans.
During his time in New Hampshire, Rasmussen lived just a few doors down from Denise Daneault, who disappeared in June 1980. Investigators don't know whether he was involved in her case, but are investigating a possible connection.
Authorities believe Rasmussen was responsible for the murders of a woman and girls whose bodies were found in a wooded area near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. A hunter found the bodies of the adult woman and one of the children in a 55-gallon metal barrel in 1985. In 2000, authorities found a second barrel nearby with the other two children inside it. All the bodies were wrapped in plastic and electrical wiring. They all died at the same time, probably between 1977 and 1981.
DNA proved two of the girls, the oldest and the youngest, were maternally related to the woman, and isotope tests showed they had all probably had been living in New Hampshire or a nearby state for several years prior to their murders. DNA showed the other girl was Rasmussen's biological daughter, but was unrelated to the woman and the other two girls.
The bodies were all unidentified until 2019, when investigators announced they'd discovered the identity of the woman and her two daughters. The woman was Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, age 24. Her daughters were Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and Sarah Lynn McWaters.
Photos of Honeychurch and her children are posted with this case summary. They disappeared from Los Angeles County, California in November 1978, at age 24, 7, and 11 months respectively. At the time, Honeychurch was dating Rasmussen. Investigators believe she was the "Elizabeth Evans" who lived with him in New Hampshire at the time of his arrest in 1980; Elizabeth was Honeychurch's middle name.
The third child, Rasmussen's daughter, is still unidentified. A sketch of the victim is posted with this case summary. She was about two to four years old, between 3'3 and 3'9 tall, with wavy brown hair and an overbite that may have been noticeable. She may have suffered from anemia. Isotope tests indicate she was probably born in a sparsely populated area of the interior western United States or one of the Plains States, and she is primarily of Caucasian ancestry but also has a small amount of Native American, African-American and Asian ancestry.
Rasmussen, and perhaps his unidentified daughter, had ties to the Navajo Nation and the area surrounding Black Mesa, Arizona. DNA evidence indicates the unidentified girl and her mother have relatives in Pearl River County, Mississippi. They may be descendants of Thomas "Deadhorse" Mitchell, born in 1836, or William Livings, born in 1826. The girl would have been the five times or six times great-grandchild of either of those men.
Between 1984 and 1986, Rasmussen was living in Los Alamitos and Cypress, California, using the name Curtis Mayo Kimball. (He had stolen the real Curtis Kimball's identity in La Porte, Texas.) He had a five-year-old girl named Lisa, whom he said was his daughter. He said her mother was dead, but gave different accounts as to how she had died.
A woman claims she baby-sat for Lisa and a six-month-old girl in 1984 and 1985, when Rasmussen was living in Anaheim, California; he claimed he was the father of both of them and raising them alone. Investigators believe Rasmussen may have killed the infant, who has not been identified. When they asked Lisa if she had any brothers or sisters, she said she did, but that they had died from "eating grass mushrooms" during a camping trip.
In the summer of 1985, he left Lisa in the care of a married couple he knew and dropped out of sight. She was placed in foster care and adopted a short time later. In 1986, felony arrest warrants were issued for Rasmussen under the alias name Gordon Curtis Jenson. He was living in a trailer park in Scotts Valley, California at the time.
In 1988, Rasmussen was arrested in San Luis Obispo, California, under the name Gerald E. Mockerman; police caught him driving a car that had been stolen from Preston, Idaho. Fingerprints identified him as Gordon Jenson and he was charged with child abandonment and child molestation; the victim in both instances was Lisa.
Rasmussen pleaded guilty to abandonment and was sentenced to three years in prison; the molestation charge was dropped because Lisa's adoptive parents didn't want her to have to testify against him in court. He was paroled in 1990 after serving one year, and immediately disappeared again. Investigators have little knowledge of his actions over the next twelve years.
In 2001, Rasmussen married Eunsoon Jun, a Korean immigrant, in Richmond, California, under the name Lawrence William "Larry" Vanner. The marriage was not legally binding. A photograph of Jun is posted with this case summary. Within a year he had killed her, partially dismembered her body and buried it under the basement of her home. In 2003, he pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. He died there in 2010.
Beginning in 2003, authorities began trying to identify Lisa; they had determined Rasmussen was not her father. In 2014, they entered her DNA into an online database to connect her with her biological relatives. In 2016, the database linked her to a cousin of Denise's, and Lisa was able to confirm that she was Denise Beaudin's daughter and her real name was Dawn. She has no memories of her mother.
It was only after Lisa's identity was confirmed that authorities made the connection between Rasmussen and the four unidentified Allenstown victims. He did some work for the man who owned the land where the unidentified victims were found, and in October 2016, authorities determined he was the biological father of the middle-aged child, the one who wasn't related to the other three victims. They also think he may have killed this child's mother.
Authorities believe Rasmussen probably killed Denise somewhere between New Hampshire and California. She was not listed as a missing person until 2016. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
- Manchester Police Department
- 603-668-8711
- 603-792-5505
Updated 11 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated March 4, 2021; details of disappearance updated.