Naman Shrestha
In the episode titled ‘The Chameleon’ of ABC’s ’20/20,’ the primary focus is on Terry Peder Rasmussen and the numerous aliases he used to commit various crimes across the nation between the 1970s and 2000s. However, the documentary also sheds light on the horrific killing of Eunsoon Jun, a chemist in her mid-40s, in Richmond, California, in 2002. Her sudden disappearance from the lives of her loved ones got the police involved and led to the discovery of her remains and, eventually, her unlikely killer.
Eunsoon Jun Was Found Dead in a Crawl Space of a Richmond Residence
Eunsoon Pamela Jun entered her mother, Kyo Yea Jun’s, life in the form of a little bundle of joy on July 31, 1957, in South Korea. She was raised in a seemingly loving household alongside her sister, Jinsoon An, and three brothers — Sung Il, Sang Sun, and Sang Kyung. After a few years, she and her family moved to Monterey County, California, where she attended Pacific Grove High School before pursuing higher studies at Monterey Peninsula College. The free-spirited Korean immigrant also went to the University of California at Davis. For her master’s degree, she attended the University of California, San Francisco.
After graduating with flying colors, Eunsoon secured jobs as a chemist at several major pharmaceutical companies, including Bio-Rad, GenTech, and Syntex. She was also employed at City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles, where she conducted research on bone marrow transplants. In her free time, the Richmond Art Center member pursued her passions, including creating pottery, helping those in need, exploring different cultures and religions, and more. Her free-spirited personality resonated with a man named Larry Vanner, whom she began dating in 2000.
The following year, the couple got married in a little backyard ceremony in their Richmond, California, home. All seemed to be going perfectly fine in the chemist’s life until June 2002, when she suddenly disappeared. After one of her friends reported to the police that 44-year-old Eunsoon could not be contacted, they went to the Richmond house that she shared with her husband. In a crawl space in the garage, the detectives found a 2-3-foot-high pile of cat litter, underneath which Eunsoon’s mummified remains were discovered. The autopsy revealed that the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the head. As a result, a homicide investigation was launched.
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Someone Close to Eunsoon Jun Killed Her and Kept Her Remains Hidden
When Eunsoon Jun went missing, her friend, Renee Rose, contacted her husband, Larry Vanner, who allegedly provided her with several excuses as to why she couldn’t speak to her. As per Renee, “He would say, ‘Well she’s busy taking care of her mother’ or ‘She was going to get some therapeutic help. He would say she decided she didn’t like me anymore and didn’t want me in her life. Who could believe him for one second?” It turned out that Larry had gradually estranged Eunsoon from her family and friends. Determined to speak to her friend, Renee claimed that she told Larry, “I want Eunsoon, not you, I want Eunsoon to tell me that she’s done with our relationship or I’m going to get the sheriff involved.” When Renee still could not get in touch with Eunsoon, she contacted the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office.
The police then brought Larry in for questioning. The suspect attempted to evade the subject of Eunsoon’s disappearance and discussed irrelevant topics with the detective. While discussing his wife, he kept changing his story, which led them to believe he was being dishonest. That’s when the authorities searched their Richmond property and found Eunsoon’s remains. Although the investigators didn’t have any physical evidence to tie him to the murder, they determined that a man matching his description had purchased 10 bags of cat litter from a pet store. Armed with enough evidence, Larry was arrested in November 2002 for the murder of Eunsoon Jun. The following year, he pleaded guilty to the charges against him and received a 15-year imprisonment sentence for the same. It was later found that Larry was actually one of the many aliases of Terry Peder Rasmussen, a suspected serial killer tied to multiple murders.
