An artist’s rendering shows what the unidentified daughter of suspected serial killer Terry Rasmussen might have looked like before her killing. Genealogical testing has now shown she likely has/had relatives in Pearl County, Mississippi. Credit: New Hampshire State Police/NamUs
The DNA Doe Project has partnered with the New Hampshire State Police to take a fresh look at the case of a little girl who was the biological daughter of serial killer Terry Rasmussen, also known as the Chameleon Killer.
This little girl was between 2 and 4 years old at the time of her death. Her remains were found in a barrel on May 9, 2000 on private property near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, NH.
Updated bioinformatics analysis has revealed that her mother is solely of European descent, and research has shown that she has colonial American ancestry. Her biological mother is currently unknown.
Investigative genetic genealogy research is always provided pro bono at the DNA Doe Project. Since this case already had an existing DNA profile, the DDP team of 6 experts got started immediately. Firebird Forensics worked on the case prior to it coming to the DNA Doe Project in 2024.
The Chameleon Killer
In 1985, a hunter walking along woods near a New Hampshire state park found a rusted 55-gallon drum. Inside, wrapped in plastic, were two badly decomposed bodies—a female adult and a female child. With no missing persons reports in the area, the case went cold quickly. It didn’t heat back up until 15 years later when a New Hampshire trooper investigating the case went back to the area and found a second drum about 100 yards from the first. It was the same story—the drum contained the decomposed remains of two children, 2 to 4 years old and 1 to 3 years old. All four victims had been beaten, possibly to death, and some were dismembered. The killings are believed to have been committed around the same time.
We now know that the killer was Rasmussen, also known as The Chameleon Killer.
Rasmussen's web of lies, murder and false identities began to unravel in 2002 when he was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun. Despite being arrested as Larry Vanner, his fingerprints came back belonging to Curtis Kimball, a California parolee who had disappeared after being released on a child endangerment charge. That charge stemmed from Rasmussen abandoning his 5-year-old child, Lisa Jenson, at a neighbor’s house. Subsequent DNA testing confirmed Rasmussen was not Lisa’s biological father.
In June 2003, Rasmussen was convicted of Jun’s murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, where he would stay until 2010 when he died of natural causes. His death did not mean the end of the case, though. Investigators, amateur sleuths, professional genealogists and others continued their dogged pursuit for answers and identities.
In 2016, DNA testing revealed one of the children in the barrels was Rasmussen’s biological child—the case DNA Doe Project is currently working on.
Police also announced then that Denise Beaudin, one of Rasmussen’s girlfriends, was officially listed as missing and a suspected victim of the probable serial killer. Beaudin is the biological mother of Lisa Jenson. She, nor her remains, have been found.
In 2017, authorities revealed Rasmussen’s true name, and that he was suspected in the deaths of at least six people.
In 2019, genealogical research, including a message on ancestry.com, lead authorities to positively identify three of the bodies in the barrels as Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch and her children Marie Elizabeth Vaughn and Sarah Lynn McWaters. The children were the oldest and youngest victims, as Rasmussen’s biological child is aged between them.