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Gone Cold N.H.
Gone Cold N.H.
Denise Beaudin's Disappearance
Denise Beaudin, age 23, was last seen by her family in November of 1981.
Bryana Cabrera explores this complicated case that has a surprising connection to one of New Hampshire's most notorious cold cases.
INTRO
Wind chimes
Families of missing persons deal with a range of emotions…one minute there’s hope and the next, hopelessness. Days, months, years can be spent wondering where their loved one is or how they disappeared.
*DISCLAIMER*
My name is Bry and I will be shedding some light on the missing person’s case of Denise Beaudin on this episode of Gone Cold NH.
Before diving into some details I would like to mention that Denise does have living relatives that would like to keep their private life… private.
I will be discussing this case in a respectful manner and maintaining those lives private.
Respect is important, according to Joelle Donnelly Wiggins.. she’s the Victim Advocate for New Hampshire’s Cold Case Unit.
“Can you imagine just like all of a sudden realizing you’re a totally different person and not only that- it turned into a national case. This isn’t what she ever envisioned for her life.” @21:39
Denise Beaudin was last seen in of 1981 on Thanksgiving. At this family gathering she was 23 years old.. and expecting a baby girl.
Denise had brown hair and brown eyes, she was the family girl next door.
The man with her that day, was Bob Evans.
We later learn that WASN’T his name. We also learn that Bob Evans – who’s real name is Terry Rassmussen.. was also nicknamed the Chameleon Killer.
Thanksgiving table family ambiance
I imagine that this was a typical Thanksgiving, good feast, family chatter.
When someone brings a significant other to a family gathering it is expected for that person to be interrogated. Questions of background info or hobbies begin to fill the air “where is your family from?” “What do you do for a living?”
Denise’s family did not expect Thanksgiving to be the last time to enjoy her company, especially with Christmas around the corner.
What would come later would be a nightmare for the family. They learned their loved one had gone missing.
And remember, the last person she was seen with was not who he claimed to be.
Not only was the man calling himself Bob Evans lying about his true identity … but the family learned a couple years later after Denise’s disappearance… that the man was a serial killer.
And he was linked a notorious New Hampshire Cold Case often referred to as the Bear Brook Case..
I would think that not knowing where your loved one is with no real leads would make a family lose some hope. Then, finding out that the last person she was with turned out to be a serial killer would make anyone lose all their hope.
Rhonda Randall and her brother Scott Randall have a passion for solving cold cases. They researched and investigated the Bear Brook case in their spare time and helped the police department tremendously.
You may have heard of a very popular podcast by NHPR’s Jason Moon. It explores the Bear Brook murders and in several episodes Rhonda is interviewed.
The Bear Brook case involves large barrels found in a New Hampshire State Park.. in the barrels were bodies.
It turns out.. those barrels were located near where Terry Rassmussen, aka Bob Evans.. lived.
I interviewed Ronda because I felt that she knew the case like the back of her hand and was passionate about solving it.. She remembers when she first learned about Denise’s disappearance.
“I was at work I was a counselor in a school the day the and …
I would say counselor this school I was at work that day the story broke in Manchester NH denise beaudin her disappearance and her connection to bob evans so I was at work and I have my phone was on silent but I do get notifications you know I had I had this cell could hear that and all of a sudden I my phone just started chirping like crazy and and all of a sudden I my phone just started chirping like crazy and I realized that all these people were texting me and finishing up the session with the child and so I had to wait but um when I looked at my phone you know it was just text after text saying did you see the news today or have you read it have you anymore or do you see what I think was the Union Leader you know do you see it did you see once the story interview Hampshire and so I knew it must have been something pretty significant and quickly went into it and found the story about tennis and I was flabbergasted because she you know I grew up I don't know 8 miles from where she lived something ends never heard her name never knew she was missing person in New Hampshire and you know we spend years at that point back brother and I you know contacting families and the missing and trying to get people listened and made this who who hadn't been listed as missing and so you know and we so start here for and as I read the article and it said that you know she is left with her boyfriend Evans I have my heart just stopped because several years before that in the summer of 2014 that name had come up when I had been talking to and Gallagher the owners the property where the barrels were found and he had told me in that July that you know I asked multiple times over the years I think I start talking until mid 2011 or 12 and you told me over the years to primaries he had but he never really mentioned anyone specifically in July 2014 school he had told me that he wanted the people that he wondered about was bobby evans AM he said that well it was someone he knew that I had done work there and he had dumped a lot of junk on gallanders property and so you know because we have the name you know I and the second clear Chris him about everything he can remember about broadband and so II sat down pulled up my interviews on my computer just started reading through everything that he had said about God and bins as my brother and I had spent quite a bit of time after we and name trying to find Bob Evans and never did and so then I called the New Hampshire State police cold case unit right from my office says school and should and I thing that he had said about bob evans because my brother and I and after we have that name trying to find for them ever did and so then I called the New Hampshire State police cold case from my office at school and I just crossed the machine but I just said I know brother please tell him that the same Bob Evans and galleghar said I was just in his mind in the allenstown slaying because the day that Denise bold story broke there was no connect they didn't say anything now and town that day because of the name of who she went missing it was in an immediate red flag you know for Allenstown and I wondered if denise could be the woman in the barrel you know that was my first thought you know it's because time went on it turned out she wasn't but that's kind of the story of what happened with the that story broke So they're coming across the board May 2nd question do you think that Bob Evans has like is he did think he's the reason of her disappearance yes certainly as later at Gallagher later concerns later that's summer that he had conversation with bobby evans he said he brought his pregnant wife or girlfriend with them later on you I'm and you know she was driving because he lost his license I mean he said that that is to be and certainly too much coincidence to assume that she anyone else for many of her life just see there that she disappeared at the hands of someone else. I'm sure she's deceased somewhere next at a lot of time going through identifying roommates and connecting to her. yeah so you had mentioned that See willing to talk to almost anybody I've ever tried to have him you know he wouldn't talk to I don't believe he ever talk to Jason never all their reporters and they tried to charge is never been willing to talk to anyone and it's been quite some time since I've talked with them and I'm not sure so he's seeing and shows come out in the podcast I'm not sure whether it would even still speak to me you know this According to him this whole experience home like a cloud over his head up he does have a public post control number and you can search and give it a try and do please don't say that I say you would talk no you already know so much.”
As I mentioned, The Bear Brook case consisted of two separate barrels that contained human remains. At first the bodies inside were not traced to any missing persons in NH.
With time and DNA technology, the Bear Brook murders would soon be solved. Investigators were able to pin the deaths on Terry Rassmussen.
But, when it came to Denise, there were no remains or traces left behind to help her family get answers to their questions about her disappearance.
The family was wondering:
How can someone who their daughter trusted be capable of such brutal murders?
How did he get away with them?
Why Denise?
Where is Denise?
Why out of all people did this happen to her? How exactly was she a part of Rasmussen’s ordeal?
Who was Terry Rassmussen?
I dug a little deeper to discuss how a serial killer finds their victims.
As we know from the beginning of this episode Rasmussen is introduced as Bob Evan’s. This is in fact one out of many different aliases he lived by.
We know that technology has improved drastically in the past decades. In the 80s it was fairly easy to create and collect different identities.
Here is Colton Seale, who worked for the FBI for 22 years and is now a professor at New England College, One class that he specializes in is forensic psychology connecting psychology to any issues relating to laws and the legal system alongside criminal justice as a whole.
We first discuss how easy it was to collect different identities in the 80s’
“Obviously back in the 80s is way different than it is now its really hard to be able to do that you still can but its a lot more difficult so say i know that he was arrested several time and they did at one point on a connection based off his fingerprints but then he goes to another state… national fingerprint database that we have now and states were not connected computer technology was in its infancy in a way back.” 5:56
“There are different ways that it could be done.it was really easy back then to make fake drivers license actually i arrested one guy that was really good at it they would go into the DMV and there were these stacks of licenses that were ready to be made into licenses and a friend would distract people while he'd go over and steal those and then they'd just make fake ICE IDS and once you had an ID then you could go into social security and say “here’s who I am and I've lost my social security card can you give me a new one. People would also steal documents. There was no real way in telling they were authentic….BAck then we would I would work under different alias’ a lot doing undercover stuff and everything we’d just make fake IDS i could get on the airplane using a fake ID.” 7:40
Technology now that would help better detect false identities would be the National Fingerprint database.
“Fingerprint identification system database. Almost all police departments can scan a fingerprint that goes back to the fbi database then its checked. ALmost immediate feedback . can even be done with cellphones. Different names can be looked up and get immediate results. Before you had to ask every state which is incredibly time consuming.”
Another reason as to why Rasmussen is deemed to be evil was that he was a serial killer. Usually serial killers tend to be the psychopathic type. In Seale’s opinion Rasmussen seems to show those psychopath tendencies. What separates a ‘normal’ person from a psychopath is how the brain functions. Serial killers are not just born killers there are many factors that come into play for them to develop killing tendencies like childhood trauma. Although not much is known about Terry Rassmussen we are not sure where this developed
“Based on what i know about him he’d kind of fall in the psychopathic type of serial killer” ‘he exhibited the traits of a psychopath where he was on the surface he was likable…right he was able to attract these people to him and kind of win people over but then when they got to know him they noticed something was off. Psychopaths are very good at portraying kind of goodness and likeability on the surface but then also underneath that having no empathy or feeling for other people right and even though they generally know the difference between good and bad they don’t care.Because they don't feel that empathy they don’t have feeling of emptiness in a sort of way but they also have no control so in terms of there’s no guilt stopping them from doing stuff so they end up killing for a couple reasons. One is that they are very reactive as they are prone to violence if somebody does something that they don’t like and so that could be one reason to kill. The other is like I was getting at they don't feel that attachment with other people but they need excitement in their life and killing is the one way where they can get that. The rest of us would go play a sport. Serial killers have to go to a different level.”
What was so special about Denise and his other victims? How do serial killers pick their victims? What kind of patterns or trends do we normally see?
“Serial killers do tend to favor specific types I guess. There is one serial killer who was never caught;...(incoherent assuming most serial killers are male.) all his victims were women with red hair. With Rassmussen it seemed to be women he formed some attachment to so that would have been his thing. You look at Ted Bundy, he was a college aged woman. All of them have their thing and that seemed to have been his.”
How could Rasmussen hide his killing habits and live day by day in a normal functioning society?
“Because they’re really good at knowing what other people expect or want from them right they don't have that empathy they don't feel for people but they know what other people want they recognize that other people feel other things so their able to do things that draw that empathy out of other people and react to superficially in a way that attracts people to them so a lot of psychopaths are really good at doing that. Like for example up to 20% of CEOS score pretty high on a psychopathy test because they’re superficially able to have that charm and everything and they also have no compunction about doing what they need to do to get to the top so that helps for sure. but this is most circular psychopaths do on the surface: know what other people want so they attract people to them and can live life that appears normal but they only can do it for a certain amount of time like with rasmusen he had to keep moving.”
1:52
ABOUT BEAR BROOK
To understand more about Denise Beaudin.. I want to tell you more about Bear Brook.
The Bear Brook case consisted in the discovery of two barrels. Those two barrels were both found in Bear Brook State park located in Allenstown, New Hampshire. One was found in the year of 1985; the other was found 15 years later in the year 2000 only 100 yards away from each other.
Within those two barrels were human remains. A total of 4 humans were contained in big blue barrels. These barrels are usually used to send goods overseas or just for storage use. As someone who were to discover these barrels they might have thought that someone was just getting rid of junk, but the sad reality was finding humans within.
The four victims were three little girls ranging from ages 10-2 years old and one woman in her 20s. Two of the girls were actually maternally related to the oldest victim. The third girl ¾ years old was unrelated to the rest of the victims and still has not been identified.
All four victims' remains were either partially or completely skeletonized. This made it hard for investigators to give them an identity.
In order to make the connection to linking the jane does to their true identity isotopes were helped.
Isotopes work in a way by using body tissues like nails, hair, bones, and teeth and testing them to figure out which region the human might have lived in or traveled to. This narrows down places to discover missing persons. The isotopes that were done for this investigation lead to the identification that all 4 victims lived near Atlantic Coast.
Because of the isotope technology, three of the Bear Brook victim’s were later identified as:
Marylyse Honeychurch, who was 24. Marie Vaughn who was 7 and Sarah McWaters who was only 11 months.
But 41 years later there is still no sign of Denise Beaudin.
If you know any information that may help solve this case.. contact the New Hampshire Cold Case unit at (603)-271-2663
I would like to thank everyone involved in this episode from interviews to music and sounds brought to you by bluedot sessions.