Abandoned girl's search for parents triggered breakthrough in Allenstown murder case
Genetic genealogy linked girl abandoned as child by Terry Rasmussen to missing Manchester woman
Genetic genealogy linked girl abandoned as child by Terry Rasmussen to missing Manchester woman
Genetic genealogy linked girl abandoned as child by Terry Rasmussen to missing Manchester woman
Terry Rasmussen's crimes in New Hampshire began years before the bodies of a woman and three children were discovered stashed in barrels in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown. But those earlier crimes wouldn't be discovered until a woman in California, abandoned as a child, tried to learn who her parents were.
As New Hampshire investigators tried to track down Rasmussen's movements in the 1980s, they focused on Denise Beaudin and her 6-month-old daughter.
Beaudin went missing from Manchester, New Hampshire, in the fall of 1981 when she left her apartment with her boyfriend, Bob Evans, who was later identified as Rasmussen.
Investigators discovered that Rasmussen kept the girl with him for several years, and around the time she was 5 or 6, he gave her away to people in California.
Police sought him for abandoning the girl, and he served time in prison on those charges. He was eventually convicted of murdering a California woman and died in prison.
But Rasmussen wasn't connected to the bodies found in Bear Brook State Park until the girl he abandoned, known as Lisa, learned that the man who left her behind was not her father.
"They essentially had an adult Jane Doe who didn't know what her true identity was," said New Hampshire State Police Lt. Michael Kokoski. "And they were working with her via genetic genealogy to try to locate relatives and locate who her true family members were."
The Lisa Project
That was the start of the Lisa Project, headed up by San Bernardino County Sheriff Deputy Peter Headley.
"With Lisa, I had actually taken a look at Ancestry.com in the past," Headley said. "The databases were still pretty small back then, and then in discussing it with her, she brought it up herself."
Immediately, the Ancestry database showed some matches with distant cousins.
"And I thought, 'Wow, this might just work,'" Headley said.
The investigation still faced significant challenges.
"Usually, with an adoptee, you have some geographic information, and we had nothing," Headley said. "We had no idea where he took her from."
Headley said the process of genetic genealogy involves building a family tree, branch by branch, finding connections until something ties everything together.
"And then once you get an ancestor in common, for several generations back or more, then you have to build that tree back down, and your subject is going to be in that family tree," he said. "The family trees get huge."
Once living relatives are found, the investigation can enter a new phase.
"That's when I would call them up, contact them, and just tell them what's going on," Headley said. "I'd say, 'You're related to our victim. We don't know how close or how distant. Will you test?'"
One of the matches was with a first cousin of Denise Beaudin.
"Call it a hunch, but how many missing people do you have out of one family?" Headley said.
Beaudin's family didn't know why she left home with her boyfriend, but they suspected they were on the run from bad bets. A missing-person report wasn't filed.
"And I know people have been throwing out criticism: 'Why didn't they report them missing?'" Headley said. "But you've got to remember the time. There were no cellphones. There was no social media. And if someone moved away, the only contact was by a letter or a phone call. A landline. That was it."
It's still a mystery what happened to Beaudin, but given Rasmussen's history, investigators said it's likely she was another victim.
"I'm sure he killed her," Headley said. "As far as when and where, we don't know."
Connecting the pieces
As Lisa's family tree came into focus, Headley learned about the bodies found in Allenstown.
"The (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) contacted me and said, 'Hey, there's a case down the road, the Allenstown murders, and you need to talk to New Hampshire State Police,'" Headley said. "That's when I got in touch with Mike Kokoski, and I just sent him a copy of my whole case file. We started comparing and connecting dots between Rasmussen aka Bob Evans and the Allenstown case."
Headley and Kokoski began to fit the pieces together.
"We would have many, many long phone calls, of course, coast to coast, discussing these events and details as they unfolded and sharing our thoughts on where we thought this was heading," Kokoski said.
The timing of Beaudin's disappearance, coupled with what was known about Rasmussen was compelling.
"I think our initial impression wasn't necessarily, 'Aha! This is the guy,'" Kokoski said. "It was more, 'Boy, this is interesting, and this is the kind of guy who this case might come back to.' Somebody who was transient, somebody who clearly had a checkered past, somebody who was potentially involved in another disappearance. The timeframe made sense."
Headley contacted Manchester police and asked them to see if Lisa's grandfather would supply a DNA sample.
"When they showed a picture of Rasmussen to Lisa's grandfather, he identified him as Bob Evans," Headley said. "That locked it up, that this is who Lisa is: Dawn Beaudin. So, we let Lisa know who she is."
Lisa still lives in California with her children and husband. After her identity was confirmed, she released a statement saying she's thankful for being reunited with her relatives and hopes that the families of other victims will find closure.
Investigators were able to build on the information provided by Denise Beaudin's family to link Rasmussen to a job at the Waumbec Mill in Manchester. He worked under the man who owns the Allenstown property where the victims were found.
DNA testing confirmed that Rasmussen was the father of the still-unidentified middle child found on the property.
Headley said that if he had killed Lisa or if her family connections weren't revealed, investigators might never have been able to tie Rasmussen to the case.
And it's a case that's still being investigated.
"As we've been backtracking Rasmussen, we're looking for more victims," Headley said. "And as we keep digging into his past, it opens up more possibilities of more victims."
Police now have a clearer picture of how Rasmussen operated.
"He would single out single moms and start a relationship with them, and once he had total control over them, he'd murder them," Headley said. "They'd have young children, he'd take the kids with him and use the kids as a come-on to the next victim. 'Poor me, single dad.' And in the meantime, he's abusing the kids. And it looks like as the kids got old enough to talk about being abused, then he'd murder them, too."
Lisa, Headley said, was lucky.
"I'm sure he was about to kill Lisa," he said.
Lisa wasn't able to tell investigators much when she was young.
"She was asked if she had other siblings, and she said yes, but they had died from 'eating grass mushrooms when they were out camping,'" Headley said.
Information has trickled in from other sources.
"When he was in the Anaheim area, the Orange County area in 1984 and '85, we had eyewitnesses that he was seen with a woman that he was dating, and there were several kids in the car with her," Headley said. "We also have a woman who babysat for Lisa and another 6-month-old, and he was there in Orange County. And we don't know what happened to the 6-month-old, her mother, the woman he was dating."
Rasmussen was a serial killer who made victims of those he had relationships with.
"We know that he would have more than one woman on the string at a time," Headley said. "He would be grooming the next victim while he was still with the previous."
Headley said it's almost certain there are more victims to discover.
"I'm sure there's a lot more," he said. "Again, if he took two to three years to groom each victim, and you start adding the years up, there's definitely more out there."