Terry Rasmussen's brutal crime - A detailed case overview

Oxygen will re-air the case of Terry Rasmussen today, which was covered on season 1, episode 4 of Unknown Serial Killers of America. Better known as “The Chameleon Killer,” Rasmussen was convicted of the murder of numerous women and children in California from 1985 to 2002.

The Oxygen episode details Terry Rasmussen's crimes, his past, and how investigators made a shocking discovery that finally led to the arrest and conviction of Rasmussen. Season 1, episode 4 of Unknown Serial Killers of America originally aired on June 8, 2025.

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Terry Rasmussen's crimes explored

It all started in 1985, when some hunters stumbled upon a 55-gallon drum in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. Inside the drum, they found decomposed, plastic-wrapped remains of an adult woman and a young girl.

Initially, the authorities believed the case to be an isolated homicide, but 15 years later, a second barrel was discovered nearby, containing the remains of two more young girls.

Investigators later confirmed that the adult woman they discovered fifteen years ago in the barrel was the mother of one of the two girls who were found in the drum, according to Oxygen. The victims remained unidentified for years.

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A 2002 murder that finally led to an arrest

The case was revisited once again in 2022, when 44-year-old chemist Eunsoon Jun went missing in Contra Costa County, California. Her new husband, who called himself “Larry Vanner,” gave conflicting stories about her disappearance, which made the police suspicious, as reported by ABC.

When investigators searched his home, they discovered Jun’s dismembered, mummified body buried under hundreds of pounds of cat litter in the garage. She had been killed by blunt force trauma. Vanner was arrested and convicted of second-degree murder in relation to the crime, and it would soon come to light that this man had been using different identities and committing murder.

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The different guises of Terry

During the investigation, authorities discovered that Vanner used to live under the name of “Gordon Jensen” in a California RV park with a little girl he claimed was his daughter, Lisa. When Lisa was placed with a foster family, she disclosed sexual abuse at Jensen’s hands, and years later, DNA testing proved Lisa was not his daughter.

Terry was finally arrested and convicted (Image via Getty)

Genetic genealogy techniques eventually determined that Lisa was actually Dawn Beaudin, a child who had vanished from New Hampshire in 1981 with her mother, Denise Beaudin. Denise’s boyfriend was a man known then as “Bob Evans", who was the same man, and his real name was Terry Rasmussen.

By 2016, forensic evidence tied Rasmussen to the unidentified Bear Brook murders, as per Oxygen. One of the girls was proven to be his biological daughter, but her mother was never found, and authorities feared that she too had been murdered.

In 2019, researchers identified that the adult woman was Marlyse Honeychurch, who disappeared from California in 1978 with her two daughters, Marie Vaughn and Sarah McWaters. All three were found in the barrels.

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Rasmussen's arrest and conviction: Where is he now?

Forensic psychologist Dr. Rachel Toles told Oxygen that Terry Rasmussen’s crimes were rooted in control and sexual abuse. His target was single mothers, who were vulnerable and easy to isolate. Each time he committed a murder, he would reinvent himself with a new name and new victims.

After years of evading authorities, he was finally arrested in November 2002, and he pleaded no contest to charges relating to Jun's murder. Rasmussen was sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison. He died in the High Desert State Prison on December 28, 2010, at the age of 67.

The cause of his death was a combination of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and pneumonia. Authorities now believe that Terry Rasmussen may have killed more than 20 women and children across the U.S.

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Catch more about Terry Rasmussen's crimes on Oxygen today.