Final Bear Brook Victim Identified, But Questions Remain
The mystery of the Bear Brook murders has plagued Allentown for decades. Now, the final victim has been identified, but several questions remain unanswered.
On September 7, the New Hampshire Department of Justice released a statement regarding a major development in the Allenstown homicide cold case, commonly known as the Bear Brook murders. In 1985, a barrel was discovered in Bear Brook State Park that contained the remains of a young girl and an adult woman. Then, in 2000, a second barrel was discovered approximately 100 yards away containing the remains of two young girls. It was determined that all four had likely been killed sometime between the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 2019, three of the four victims had been identified. The adult woman was Marlyse Honeychurch, and two of the young girls were her daughters, Sarah McWaters and Marie Vaughn. The three were last seen in 1978 in California. The fourth victim had not been identified until this recent break in the case. Now, Colonel Mark B. Hall from the New Hampshire State Police and Attorney General John M. Formella have stated that the remaining child, who had been dubbed the “middle child” due to her age in approximation to the other two children, has been identified as Rea Rasmussen.
Rea was born in Orange County, California in 1976. She was the biological child of Pepper Reed, a woman who has been missing since the late 1970s, and Terry Peder Rasmussen, the suspect believed to be responsible for all four murders. Terry died in 2010 while serving time in prison for another murder. He is believed to have been a serial killer who abused and murdered women and female children across the US between 1978 and 2002.
With the identification of Rea comes relief, but also a slew of questions that many believed would be answered with this latest development. What happened to Rea’s mother, Pepper? And how many other New Hampshire women may have fallen victim to Terry’s violent rampage when he lived in the state under the alias “Bob Evans”?
Rea Rasmussen was identified through genealogical research and DNA analysis
In 2024, the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit began working with the DNA Doe Project in an effort to identify victims of various unsolved cases. According to NHPR, the teams put together a family tree containing roughly 25,000 people who may have been related to the Bear Brook murders case. In June of 2025, they discovered a key DNA match that eventually led them to identifying Rea Rasmussen’s mother, Pepper Reed. During this investigation, the team was unable to find any record of Reed after the 1970s, but they were able to contact members of her family to provide a DNA sample. This officially confirmed Rea’s identity, and also confirmed that she had been the child of Reed and Terry Rasmussen.
Terry had been previously identified in 2017 as a suspect in the cold case through a similar DNA search. The same technique was also used to identify the other three Bear Brook victims, Marlyse Honeychurch, Sarah McWaters, and Marie Vaughn, in 2019.
The New Hampshire State Police is seeking answers regarding Pepper Reed’s disappearance and other unsolved cases
Following the identification of Rea Rasmussen and the confirmation of Pepper Reed’s disappearance, the Reed family released a statement through the New Hampshire Office of Victim Assistance. It read, in part, “Pepper is deeply loved and missed every single day. Though we did not have an opportunity to meet Rea, she is cherished just as much in our hearts. Our family kindly ask for privacy as we grieve.” Rea’s paternal half-siblings similarly requested privacy as they navigate “a deeply traumatic and personal matter.”
Law enforcement officials believe that Reed is likely another victim of Rasmussen’s suspected serial killing spree. Det. Sgt. Christopher Elphick of the New Hampshire State Police said their work isn’t done yet, and requested help from the general public in trying to determine what may have happened to Reed. “If you have any information, no matter how small it may seem, we urge you to come forward. After more than four decades, your piece of the puzzle could be the one that finally brings justice.”
In addition to Reed’s disappearance, Terry Rasmussen—who operated under the alias “Bob Evans” while he lived in New Hampshire, and used a host of other names throughout his life—is possibly linked to several other cold cases in the state. He is believed to have killed Manchester’s Denise Beaudin before abandoning her daughter at a California trailer park.
Another Manchester mother, Denise Daneault, disappeared in 1980 after a night out with friends. At the time, she lived on the same street as Terry. Just six weeks prior, a 14-year-old girl named Laureen Rahn, who lived a few blocks away from Daneault, and Terry, also disappeared. Neither Rahn nor Daneault were ever seen again.
Terry was eventually arrested in 2002 for murdering his then-girlfriend, Eunsoon Jun, in California. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison and died in High Desert Prison in 2010. You can learn more about Jun here, and for a complete timeline of Terry’s life, and a list of his possible victims, click here.
Given the extent of Terry’s previously identified violent behavior, it’s believed that there are several other possible known and unknown victims who died by his hand. The New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Department, Department of Justice, and the DNA Doe Project will continue to seek justice for these women and their families.
All Good Info News Wire articles are open source through CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium, as long as you follow these guidelines:
-
You must give Good Info News Wire credit, including https://goodinfo.news/ and the author’s name.
-
Stories may be edited for in-house style or to shorten, but you must indicate if any changes were made.
-
You can publish our graphics and any photos that are credited to Good Info News Wire with the stories with which they originally appeared.
-
Don’t sell the story, publish it behind a paywall, or sell ads against the story. However, you can publish it on a page with ads you’ve already sold.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
