Naman Shrestha
ABC’s ’20/20: The Chameleon’ delves into the mystery behind the remains of four individuals found inside two barrels in Bear Brook State Park, which shook the entire community of New Hampshire. After decades of investigation, the detectives tied Terry Peder Rasmussen to the four killings. He reportedly used multiple aliases while committing crimes in order to evade the authorities. A mother named Denise Beaudin is considered one of his potential victims, as her daughter helped the police link Terry to her sudden 1981 disappearance.
Denise Beaudin Was a Mother to a Six-Month-Old Daughter When She Disappeared
Born on January 7, 1958, to Armand Beaudin, Denise Beaudin grew up in a seemingly loving and supportive household in Goffstown, New Hampshire. By 1981, she had become a mother to a daughter named Dawn Beaudin, but severed ties with the father of her child. As a single mother raising her daughter, she likely faced numerous challenges but managed to shower her with immense love and care. Things began looking up when she first crossed paths with a man named Robert T. “Bob” Evans in her early 20s.
After forming a romantic connection with him, she began dating him and decided to introduce him to her family. Thus, on Thanksgiving Day 1981, Denise, Dawn, and Bob visited the former’s family in Goffstown, New Hampshire, over dinner. Little did her family members know that that would be the last time they saw and met Denise. Over the next few days, when her family and friends couldn’t get in touch with her, her parents visited her home in the 900 block of Hayward Street in Manchester, New Hampshire, on December 1. However, the 23-year-old woman, her 6-month-old daughter, and her boyfriend were nowhere to be found.
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Denise Beaudin Remains Missing to This Day
Since Denise Beaudin and Bob Evans were going through financial troubles, her family assumed that they had left to start afresh somewhere else. Thus, she was not reported missing. A few years later, Bob abandoned Dawn in the care of a married couple at a campground in California in 1986. At the time, he was using a different alias and also introduced Dawn as Lisa to the couple. Several decades later, in 2016, the police discovered that Lisa was Dawn with the help of genetic genealogy and that Bob Evans was a dangerous serial killer named Terry Peder Rasmussen, who had lived under multiple aliases over the years. Since there was no sign of Denise by then, she was officially reported missing more than three decades after her actual disappearance.
In January 2017, based on Terry’s modus operandi and the fact that Manchester was in close proximity to the location of the two barrels containing remains, the police believed that Denise might be the adult female whose remains were found in one of the barrels. Upon performing DNA testing, it was determined that they were not her remains, but of Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, Sarah Lynn McWaters, and Rea Rasmussen. However, the authorities still believe that Denise was one of Terry’s victims whose remains have not yet been found. Still considered missing, her father, Armand, doesn’t believe that she would ever be found. “There’s always that hope, but nothing’s definite,” he added.
