thumbnail
November 1985.

Two brothers walked through the woods near Bearbrook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, looking for deer.

What they found instead was a 55gallon metal drum lying on its side near an abandoned general store.

One of them noticed something protruding from the top, a human foot.

Inside were two bodies wrapped in plastic decomposed beyond recognition.

The case went cold.

15 years later, investigators returned to the same spot and found a second barrel just 100 yards away.

Two more bodies, same method, same killer.

But here’s what makes this disturbing.

For decades, no one knew who these people were.

The killer had stripped them of more than their lives.

He’d erased their identities.

And it would take an obsessed librarian, a grieving genealogologist, and a retired attorney working from home computers to give them their names back.

Subscribe to the channel and tell us in the comments where you’re watching from and what time it is where you are.

The woods around Bearbrook State Park had always been quiet.

That’s what people liked about the area.

Pine trees stretched for miles, broken only by dirt roads and hiking trails that wound through the forest like veins.

In November 1985, the air smelled like cold earth and decaying leaves.

Hunting season brought men into these woods every year, rifles slung over their shoulders, boots crunching through underbrush.

Two brothers were out that day.

The older one spotted the barrel first.

It was lying on its side near what remained of an old general store that had burned down two years earlier.

The building was just a shell now.

Blackened wood and broken glass scattered across a clearing.

Around it, rusted car parts and old appliances littered the ground.

Trash people had dumped and forgotten.

The barrel looked like all the others.

a 55gallon drum, the kind you’d see at any construction site or factory.

Nothing unusual except for the foot.

The younger brother saw it.

A human foot, small, protruding from the top where the lid didn’t quite seal.

He stood there staring, his brain trying to make sense of what his eyes were seeing.

Then he turned and threw up in the bushes.

They didn’t go back into those woods for years.

The older brother later said it took him a decade before he could hunt again.

Some things you can’t unsee.

The police arrived within the hour.

The barrel was heavy, even for four men.

Inside, wrapped in plastic sheeting, were two bodies, a woman in her early 20s, a child around 9 or 10 years old.

Both had been dead for years.

The medical examiner estimated they died sometime between 1977 and 1985.

Both had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.

The bodies were skeletonized.

Weather and time had done their work.

Identification would be difficult.

Impossible, maybe.

Detective Michael Sullivan caught the case.

He’d been with the Allenstown Police Department for 12 years and had never seen anything like this.

The crime scene offered few clues.

Sullivan and his team combed the area for days.

They found nothing.

No identification, no personal effects, no witnesses.

A forensic artist created composite sketches based on the skulls.

The sketches were released to the media.

Local newspapers ran the story.

Bodies found in Barrel near State Park.

The headline ran for a few days, then disappeared.

No one came forward.

No missing person reports matched the descriptions.

After 6 months, the case went cold.

The bodies were buried in St.

John Baptist Cemetery in Allentown.

The headstone read, “Here lies the mortal remains known only to God of a woman, aged 23 to 33, and a girl child age 8 to 10.

Their slain bodies were found on November 10th, 1985 in Bearbrook State Park.

Unknown, unidentified, forgotten.

The years passed.

The Bearbrook murders became a local legend, something older residents mentioned occasionally, but newcomers had never heard of.

In 2000, the case was assigned to a new detective.

Ron Mitchell had just transferred to the cold case unit.

He decided to take another look at the crime scene.

Mitchell drove out to Bearbrook State Park on a Tuesday morning.

The air was crisp, early spring.

He walked the property, looking for anything the original investigators might have missed.

He almost missed the second barrel.

It was partially hidden behind some brush about a 100 yards from where the first had been found.

Mitchell approached it carefully, peered inside.

Human remains, small children.

Mitchell felt his stomach drop.

15 years.

The second barrel had been sitting there for 15 years.

Inside were two more bodies, girls.

One approximately 2 to 3 years old, the other around a year old.

Both wrapped in plastic sheeting, both killed by blunt force trauma to the head.

Same time frame as the first victims.

Four bodies, four victims.

This wasn’t a domestic incident.

This was something else.

By 2000, forensic science had advanced considerably.

Mitchell had the first two bodies exumed and all four sets of remains sent for DNA testing.

The results came back within months.

The adult woman was maternally related to the oldest and youngest children.

She was their mother, but the middle child was not related to any of them.

Different mother, different family.

Mitchell stared at the report.

Four bodies, three from one family, one from another.

Why? The middle child’s DNA was entered into Cotus.

No matches.

Whoever she was, her family had never reported her missing.

Mitchell worked the case for 3 years.

He interviewed old residents, searched databases, followed every lead.

Nothing.

The case went cold again.

Somewhere in Maine, a woman named Clareire Bennett sat in the Lewon Public Library, scrolling through old newspaper archives on her computer.

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead.

The library smelled like old paper and coffee from the breakroom.

Her fingers moved across the keyboard, the clicking sound rhythmic in the quiet afternoon.

It was an unusual hobby.

Clare knew that.

But for her, it was more than a hobby.

It was therapy.

She’d grown up in a religious community in rural Vermont.

300 people living by strict rules.

No television, no outside books, no contact with the world beyond their small compound.

Clare left when she was 19.

Just walked out one day and never looked back.

Started over in a new city with nothing but $40 in her pocket.

Looking back now at 34, she could see how vulnerable she’d been.

How easily someone could have hurt her.

She’d been naive, desperate, alone.

She could have disappeared and no one would have known.

That thought haunted her.

There were women out there who had disappeared.

Women who’d been killed and never identified.

Someone had to look for them.

So Clare searched.

She picked cases and researched them methodically.

She scoured genealogy message boards, built lists of leads, checked public records.

In 2010, she came across a news article about the Bearbrook murders, four bodies in barrels, found 15 years apart, still unidentified after 25 years.

The story grabbed her.

How could four people disappear and no one notice? She printed the article and taped it to the wall above her desk at home.

A coworker Sarah noticed it one day when she came over for dinner.

What’s that about? Clare hesitated.

Just something I’m researching.

Is this for work? No, it’s Clare paused.

I look for missing people.

Try to identify them.

Sarah looked at her carefully.

That’s heavy.

Someone has to care, Clare said quietly.

600 miles away in Portland, Maine, Margaret Hayes sat at her kitchen table.

The clock on the wall ticked steadily.

Outside, rain pattered against the window, leaving trails on the glass.

She stared at a photograph of her niece, Paige.

Two years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, dead from leukemia.

3 years ago.

Margaret had been close to Paige, closer than she’d been to any of her own three grown children.

Paige’s death had broken something inside her.

Eventually, she’d found a way forward.

Genealogy.

It had started as research into her own family tree.

But then people started asking for help finding biological parents, tracking down lost relatives.

Margaret discovered she had a talent for it.

In 2011, Margaret decided to apply her skills to cold cases.

She started researching unsolved homicides in New Hampshire.

That’s when she found the Bearbrook murders.

Four victims still unidentified after 26 years.

These weren’t just bodies.

They were people.

They’d had names, families, lives.

Margaret made a decision.

She was going to find out who they were.

She contacted her brother Scott who worked in IT.

I need your help with something, she said over the phone.

What’s up? There’s this case.

Four people murdered in New Hampshire, never identified.

I think we can find out who they were.

Scott was quiet for a moment.

Maggie, you sure about this? Sounds intense.

I’m sure.

All right.

What do you need? On her first visit to the crime scene, Margaret picked up four small stones, one for each victim.

She brought them home and lined them up on her desk.

Her husband, Tom, saw them one evening.

What are those for? Placeholders, Margaret said.

Someday I’ll write their names on them.

You really think you’ll solve this? I have to try.

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen as Tom poured himself a cup.

Just don’t lose yourself in this, okay? Margaret didn’t answer.

The investigation consumed both women.

Margaret knocked on doors in Allentown with Scott.

Most people were suspicious at first.

We’re looking into the Bearbrook murders, Margaret would explain.

Trying to find out who the victims were.

An elderly woman in a faded floral dress squinted at them from her doorway.

Why? because they deserve to have their names back.

The woman studied them for a long moment.

You with the police? No, ma’am.

Just concerned citizens.

Well, I don’t know anything about it.

That was years ago.

Did you live here in the late ‘7s? I did, but I mind my business.

Always have.

What surprised Margaret most was how many residents didn’t know there had been four victims.

Most people only remembered the first two bodies.

“There were four,” Margaret would explain, pulling out news clippings on her tablet.

“Two more found in 2000.

” “I’ll be damned,” one man said, shaking his head.

“Never heard about that.

” Margaret began building a database.

“She tracked down former residents of Bearbrook Gardens, the trailer park near the crime scene.

She created a map showing all 155 lots, then spent months identifying who’d lived where between 1977 and 1985.

Her husband would wake at 2:00 a.

m.

to find her at the computer, still searching.

The glow from the screen illuminated her face in the dark kitchen.

The house was silent, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the clicking of keys.

You need to sleep, he’d say.

Just a few more minutes.

You said that two hours ago.

Margaret would look up, her eyes tired.

Tom, these girls had families somewhere out there.

Someone’s missing them.

Someone’s wondering what happened.

I know, but you can’t help them if you don’t take care of yourself.

Clare followed a similar path in Maine.

She’d built her own database, cross-referencing ages, physical descriptions, dates of disappearance.

She spent hours on genealogy message boards.

Her apartment was small, one bedroom on the third floor of an old building.

At night, she could hear traffic from the street below, the occasional siren, the voices of people walking home from bars.

She’d sit at her desk, the only light coming from her laptop screen, scrolling through decades old posts from people searching for lost relatives.

Sometimes her fingers would cramp from typing.

Sometimes her eyes would blur from staring at the screen, but she kept going.

Years passed.

Neither woman knew the other existed.

Both working toward the same goal.

In 2016, Clare learned about a new development.

DNA testing had revealed something significant.

The middle child had a biological father, and investigators knew who he was.

He was a man who’d been convicted of murder in California in 2003 and died in prison in 2010.

He’d been living under the name Curtis Kimble, but that wasn’t his real name.

He’d used at least six different identities across multiple states.

In 2016, he was simply known as the Chameleon.

Clare read the news article three times.

The killer had been dead for 6 years, but at least they had a connection.

Margaret got a break in 2014.

She’d been interviewing people who’d known Ed Gallagher, the owner of the old general store property.

One of his neighbors mentioned a handyman from the late 70s, an electrician who kept to himself.

“What was his name?” Margaret asked, pen poised over her notebook.

“Bob, Bob Evans, I think.

” “You remember anything else about him?” The neighbor scratched his chin.

“Odd guy, wore a winter jacket year round.

Never talked about where he came from.

had a VW van, blue, if I remember right.

Margaret wrote it down.

Bob Evans.

She checked the name against databases.

Nothing.

The name was too common.

She called the New Hampshire State Police.

I have a lead on the Bear Brook case.

The detective on the other end sounded tired.

What kind of lead? A name? Bob Evans.

He worked as an electrician at the property where the bodies were found.

We’ll look into it.

Thanks for calling.

She never heard back.

They don’t care.

She told Scott on the phone that night.

They’re not going to follow up.

Maybe they did and it didn’t pan out.

Or maybe they filed it away and forgot about it.

Scott sighed.

You can’t force them to investigate, Maggie.

I know, but it’s frustrating.

In 2017, everything changed.

A forensic genealogologist named Patricia Cole had been working on a separate case, a woman in California, known only as Lisa, who’d been abandoned by Curtis Kimell in 1985.

Lisa was now in her 30s.

She had no idea who her biological parents were.

Patricia used a new technique.

She took Lisa’s DNA and uploaded it to public genealogy databases.

Then she started building a family tree backward looking for matches.

It took months, 20,000 hours of work, over a 100 volunteers, but eventually Patricia found the answer.

Lisa’s real name was Amy Turner.

Her mother was Rachel Turner from New Hampshire.

Rachel had disappeared in 1981 with her boyfriend, a man who called himself Bob Evans.

When California investigators shared this information with New Hampshire, something clicked.

Bob Evans, the electrician from Allenstown, they exumed the chameleon’s body and compared his DNA to samples from Bob Evans’s 1980 arrest.

Match.

Patricia used the same genealogical technique on the chameleon’s DNA.

She built his family tree backward, tracing through biological relatives, contacting distant cousins.

In July 2017, she had an answer.

Terry Rasmusen, born in Colorado in 1943, former Navy electrician, married with four children, though his family had lost contact with him in 1975.

The chameleon had a name.

Clare saw the news online.

Terry Rasmusen.

She was at work when the notification popped up on her phone.

She set down the stack of books she’d been shelving and stepped into the back room.

The smell of old cardboard and dust filled the space.

She pulled up the article on her phone, her hands suddenly unsteady.

Terry Rasmuson, born Colorado 1943, Navy electrician, six known aliases, died in California prison, 2010.

Clare’s mind raced.

She’d been following this case for 6 years.

6 years of searching message boards, building databases, cross-referencing missing person’s reports, and now they had his name.

She sat down on a box of donated books.

The concrete floor was cold beneath her feet.

She read the article again, slower this time.

The chameleon.

That’s what they’d been calling him.

A man who’d moved through multiple states, multiple identities, leaving bodies behind.

He’d targeted vulnerable women, isolated them from their families, killed them, moved on.

Clare thought about her own 19-year-old self, alone in a new city.

No family, no connections.

How easily that could have been her.

She said the name out loud, letting it sit in the air of the dusty back room.

Terry Rasmusen.

Then she went back to her files.

That night in her apartment, she pulled out six years of research, printouts, notes, spreadsheets.

The papers covered her desk, spilled onto the floor.

The desk lamp cast a yellow glow over everything.

She’d saved a message board post from 1999.

A woman looking for her husband’s halfsister.

The girl had disappeared as a toddler in 1978 when her mother left California after an argument at Thanksgiving.

Clare had checked the post dozens of times.

The details fit.

The age matched the youngest victim, but she’d never been able to confirm anything.

Now, with Rasmusen’s name, she looked again.

The woman had mentioned that the mother had left town with a boyfriend.

Clare scrolled down, her heart beginning to pound.

There it was.

The boyfriend’s last name was Rasmusen.

Clare’s hands started shaking.

She grabbed her phone, fingers fumbling over the screen.

The detective answered on the third ring.

Cold case unit Mitchell speaking.

My name is Clare Bennett.

I’ve been researching the Bearbrook murders for 6 years.

The words tumbled out faster than she intended.

I think I know who three of the victims are.

There was a pause, papers rustling in the background.

Go on.

There’s a post from 1999.

A woman looking for her husband’s halfsister.

The girl’s mother left California in 1978 with a man named Raasmuson.

Can you send me the information? Yes, right now.

I’ll email everything.

Do that.

We’ll need to verify through DNA testing.

That takes time.

How long? Months, probably.

We’ll need to locate living relatives, get samples, run the tests.

Could be 6 months, could be longer.

Clare swallowed.

But you’ll look into it.

We will miss Bennett.

Thank you for not giving up on them.

After she hung up, Clare sat in the silence of her apartment.

The refrigerator hummed.

A car alarm went off somewhere outside, then stopped.

Her hands were still trembling.

She found the woman who’d posted the message 18 years ago and sent a Facebook message.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard before she typed, “I’m researching a cold case from New Hampshire.

You posted in 1999 about your husband’s halfsister.

Are you still looking?” The response came within minutes.

“Yes, I’ve been looking for 40 years.

Her name was Lily Morrison.

Her mother was Jessica Morrison.

Clare’s breath caught.

She typed back.

Did Jessica have other children? Yes, an older daughter, Emma.

Clare closed her eyes.

After 6 years.

After 6 years, she had names.

She called the detective back.

I have names.

Jessica Morrison, Emma Morrison, Lily Morrison.

I’ll pass this along to the team.

Like I said, DNA testing takes time.

I understand.

Ms.

Bennett, you should know something.

Even if the DNA confirms this, there’s still the fourth victim, the middle child.

She’s not related to the Morrisons.

We still don’t know who she is.

One step at a time, Clare said.

Margaret learned about the Rasmuson identification from the news.

She was in her kitchen when her phone buzzed with an alert.

Bearbrook killer identified as Terry Rasmmerson.

She stared at her phone screen.

The kitchen smelled like burnt toast from breakfast.

Tom was in the next room watching television.

Margaret read the article twice, her coffee growing cold in her hand.

Terry Rasmuson, Navy electrician, multiple aliases.

Six confirmed identities across multiple states.

The article included a photo, a booking photo from 1973, a man in his 30s with dark hair and a flat, emotionless stare.

Margaret looked at that face for a long time.

This was the man who’d killed those four people, who’d stripped them of their names and thrown them away.

She called Scott.

Did you see the news? I saw it after all this time.

They’re saying someone found a connection through a genealogy message board.

Scott, that’s what we’ve been doing for 6 years.

You think it was someone working the same angles? Has to be.

Who else would be searching old message boards? Maybe someone from one of the genealogy forums you’re on.

Margaret pulled up her laptop while still on the phone.

She started searching through the genealogy message boards she frequented looking for posts about Bearbrook, about the victims, about Raasmus.

I can’t find anything, she said.

Whoever this is, they worked quietly.

Like you? Yeah, like me.

That evening, Margaret’s phone rang.

New Hampshire State Police.

Mrs.

Hayes, this is Detective Mitchell.

I wanted to let you know we have a potential identification for three of the victims.

A researcher named Clare Bennett found a connection through a 1999 message board post.

Margaret sat down.

Who were they? We’re still confirming through DNA, but it looks like Jessica Morrison and her two daughters, Emma and Lily.

Morrison? Margaret repeated.

She pulled out her notes, flipping through pages.

I have Morrison’s in my database.

A family that disappeared from California in 1978.

That matches what we have.

Ms.

Bennett is sending us all her research.

I thought you’d want to know given all the work you and your brother put in.

Thank you for telling me.

Mrs.

Hayes, I know you’ve been working on this for years.

We couldn’t have gotten here without people like you and Ms.

Bennett.

people who cared enough to keep looking.

After the call, Margaret stared at the four stones on her desk.

Soon, three of them would have names.

She picked up the phone and called the police back.

Detective Mitchell, is there any way you could put me in touch with Clare Bennett? They met two weeks later at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, halfway between their two cities.

Clare arrived first, ordering a black coffee and sitting by the window.

The shop smelled like espresso and cinnamon.

Rain streaked down the glass.

She watched people hurry past outside, umbrellas tilted against the wind.

Margaret walked in 15 minutes later, shaking rain from her coat.

They recognized each other immediately.

Something in the way they both looked around the room, searching.

Clare.

Margaret.

They shook hands.

Margaret’s grip was firm, warm.

Then she pulled Clare into a hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Thank you for caring.

” Clare hugged her back, surprised by the sudden emotion in her throat.

For the first time in six years, she didn’t feel alone.

They sat across from each other, two coffee cups between them.

Margaret ordered tea with honey.

The barista called out names.

Steam from the espresso machine hissed in the background.

I read your message board post.

Margaret said the one about looking for Jane Doe’s.

You found that? I’ve been on those boards for years.

I recognized your username.

Clare wrapped her hands around her coffee cup.

How long have you been working on this case? Since 2011.

6 years.

Margaret smiled.

Same as you.

All that time and we never crossed paths.

We were probably looking at the same posts, the same databases.

Margaret stirred honey into her tea, just working independently.

They talked for 3 hours about Paige, about the cult, about the long nights spent searching databases.

Clare described the moment she’d found the 1999 message board post.

Margaret talked about knocking on doors in Allentown the way people would close up when you asked about the murders.

“People don’t want to remember,” Margaret said.

“It’s easier to forget.

” “But someone has to remember them,” Clare said quietly.

“That’s what I told my husband.

He thinks I’m obsessed.

” “Are you?” Margaret considered this.

Maybe.

But if being obsessed means these girls get their names back, then I’m okay with that.

Outside, the rain had stopped.

Weak afternoon sunlight broke through the clouds, reflecting off wet pavement.

What happens now? Clare asked.

We wait for the DNA results.

Could be months.

And the fourth victim.

Margaret was quiet for a moment.

She looked out the window at the people passing by.

I don’t know.

She’s going to be harder.

No one’s looking for her.

Her mother’s probably dead, too.

We’ll find her, Clare said.

You sound sure.

I am.

We’ve come this far.

Margaret met her eyes.

You know what’s strange? I’ve been working on this alone for 6 years, and suddenly I’m not alone anymore.

I know the feeling.

They exchanged phone numbers, email addresses.

Margaret wrote hers on a napkin with a pen from her purse.

Clare saved it in her phone, her fingers still slightly cold from holding the coffee cup.

We should stay in touch, Margaret said.

Compare notes, work together on the fourth victim.

I’d like that.

They stood to leave.

At the door, Margaret turned back.

Clare, do you think they’re proud of us? Jessica, Emma, Lily? Clare thought about this.

I think they’re just glad someone cared enough to look.

Outside the coffee shop, warm and dry, two women who’d spent years searching for the dead, made a silent promise to keep going.

The DNA testing had begun.

The wait was on and somewhere in New Hampshire, four bodies that had been nameless for over 30 years were about to get their identities back.

Three of them at least.

The fourth would take eight more years.

Part two.

The winter of 2018 moved slowly.

Clare checked her email obsessively.

every morning before work, every night before bed, some
times at 3:00 a.

m.

when she couldn’t sleep, the blue glow of her phone illuminating her face in the dark bedroom.

Nothing.

They said it could take months, Margaret reminded her during one of their weekly phone calls.

DNA testing, tracking down relatives, getting samples.

It’s a process.

I know.

I just You want answers.

I do too.

Clare was at her desk at the library when Margaret called one afternoon in late January.

Rain drumed against the windows.

The library was nearly empty, just a few students studying at corner tables.

I’ve been thinking about the middle child, Margaret said.

Raasmuson’s daughter.

What about her? If we can find out who her mother was, maybe we can identify her.

The mother’s probably dead.

probably.

But she had a family, parents, siblings.

Someone must have noticed she disappeared.

Clare pulled up her notes.

What do we know about her? Not much.

Isotope testing showed she spent time in different regions.

Northern Maine, upstate New York.

She moved around like Rasmusen.

Exactly.

He was constantly moving.

Different states, different identities.

So, we look for missing women from the late7s who disappeared with men matching Rasmuson’s description.

That’s a lot of missing women, Margaret said quietly.

I know.

They worked through the winter.

Clare spent her evenings after work searching missing persons databases.

Margaret continued mapping Rasmuson’s movements, Navy records, employment records, arrest records, trying to piece together where he’d been and when.

In March, Margaret found something.

A woman named Pepper Reed, who’d been last seen in Houston, Texas in late 1975.

She’d been pregnant at the time.

Her family had filed a missing person’s report, but it had gone nowhere.

The timeline fits, Margaret told Clare.

If she was pregnant in late 1975, the baby would have been born in 1976.

The middle child was estimated to be about 3 years old when she died, which puts her death around 1979 or 1980.

Did Pepper Reed have any connection to Rasmuson? working on it.

But Houston in 1975, Rasmuson was working on oil rigs in Texas around that time.

Clare felt something click.

That can’t be a coincidence.

I’m going to contact Pepper Reed’s family, see if they’ll do DNA testing.

Spring arrived.

The trees around Bearbrook State Park began to bud.

Tourists came back to the area, hiking trails, taking photos.

Most had no idea what had happened there.

In California, a woman named Amy Turner, sat in her therapist’s office.

The room was warm, late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window.

The therapist, Dr.

Katherine Ross, sat across from her with a notepad.

“How are you feeling about the news?” Dr.

Ross asked.

Amy was 37 years old.

She’d known since 2016 that the man who raised her, the man she’d called her father, wasn’t her biological father.

She’d known he was a murderer.

But the details that had emerged in the past year were overwhelming.

“I don’t know how to feel,” Amy said.

Her voice was quiet.

“My mother, her name was Rachel.

Rachel Turner.

” “You said that out loud.

That’s good.

I don’t remember her.

Not at all.

I was 6 months old when he Amy couldn’t finish the sentence.

When he took you.

He killed her.

Somewhere between New Hampshire and California.

They still don’t know where.

Her body’s never been found.

Dr.

Ross wrote something in her notepad.

That must be difficult not having closure.

Amy looked out the window.

A palm tree swayed in the breeze.

There were other women, a woman named Jessica and her two daughters.

He killed them years before my mother.

He put them in barrels and left them in the woods.

You’ve read the news articles.

I can’t stop reading them, trying to understand.

Amy’s hands gripped the arms of the chair.

Who does that? Who kills women and children and just moves on to the next place? someone who’s profoundly damaged.

He raised me.

He fed me.

He took me to a babysitter.

Then one day, he just left me with strangers and disappeared.

Amy’s voice cracked.

Was any of it real? Did he care about me at all? Dr.

Ross leaned forward.

Amy, you were a victim, too.

What he did to you, taking you, lying to you, abandoning you, that was abuse.

But I lived.

Rachel didn’t.

Jessica and her daughters didn’t.

The other little girl didn’t.

Why did I survive? That’s not a question you need to answer.

Amy was quiet for a long moment.

There are people looking for them, the victims, women who’ve been searching for years, trying to give them their names back.

I read about them in the articles.

How does that make you feel? Like someone cared? like they weren’t forgotten.

In June 2019, Clare was shelving books when her phone rang.

Unknown number.

She almost didn’t answer.

Miss Bennett, this is Detective Mitchell.

Clare’s heart jumped.

She set down the books and walked quickly to the back room.

Yes.

The DNA results came back.

We have confirmation.

Clare sat down on a stack of boxes.

Her hands were shaking.

Who were they? Jessica Morrison, age 24.

Emma Morrison, age 8.

Lily Morrison, 11 months.

All three died between 1978 and 1981.

Cause of death: blunt force trauma.

Clare closed her eyes.

After 6 years, after endless nights searching databases, reading old posts, following leads that went nowhere, we’re holding a press conference this afternoon.

I wanted you to hear it from us first.

You and Mrs.

Hayes.

Thank you, Ms.

Bennett.

We couldn’t have done this without you.

You should know that.

After the call, Clare sat in the silence of the back room.

The cardboard boxes smelled like dust and old paper.

She could hear the hum of the air conditioning, the distant sound of someone checking out books at the front desk.

Jessica, Emma, Lily, not Jane.

Does anymore real people with real names? She called Margaret.

They confirmed it, Clare said.

Her voice was unsteady.

I know.

Mitchell just called me, too.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

We did it, Margaret finally said.

“Yeah, we did.

” The press conference was held at the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office in Conquered.

Clareire and Margaret sat in the audience, not at the podium.

The official narrative focused on law enforcement and forensic science.

Patricia Cole was mentioned.

Detective Mitchell was mentioned.

The civilian investigators were referenced vaguely as researchers who contributed valuable leads.

That was fine.

They hadn’t done this for recognition.

The attorney general stood at the podium reading from prepared remarks.

After 34 years, we can finally give these victims their identities back.

Jessica Morrison, aged 24, and her daughters, Emma and Lily, disappeared from California in 1978.

They were found in Bearbrook State Park in 1985.

Today, we honor their memory and the tireless work of everyone who refused to let them be forgotten.

Reporters asked questions.

How was the breakthrough made? What technology was used? Would there be additional charges? The perpetrator, Terry Rasmusson, died in prison in 2010, Mitchell explained.

He can’t face trial for these murders, but we can give the family’s closure.

We can give these victims their names.

One reporter raised her hand.

Detective, what do we know about Terry Rasmusen? How did he evade capture for so long? Mitchell glanced at his notes.

Razmusen was born in Colorado in 1943.

He joined the Navy in 1961, worked as an electrician.

After his discharge in 1967, he married and had four children.

His wife left him in 1975 after he was arrested for assault.

And after that, after that, he essentially disappeared.

He moved to Texas, used the alias Bob Evans, worked on oil rigs.

By 1978, he’d surfaced in New Hampshire, still using the Evans name.

He worked as an electrician at various jobs.

That’s where he met Jessica Morrison.

The reporter wasn’t done.

How many victims are we talking about? Mitchell was quiet for a moment.

Confirmed six.

Jessica Morrison and her daughters, Rachel Turner, Yunsun Jun in California in 2001, and now Rya Rasmuson.

But investigators believe there could be more.

How many more? We don’t know.

Rasmuson lived in multiple states over 30 years.

California, New Hampshire, Texas, Arizona.

There are large gaps in his timeline.

Gaps where we don’t know where he was or what he was doing.

another reporter.

What about the victim’s families? Have they been notified? Yes, we’ve been in contact with Jessica Morrison’s family in California.

They’re devastated, of course, but grateful for answers after all these years.

Clare felt her throat tighten.

Devastated, but grateful.

What a terrible combination.

After the conference, Clare and Margaret stood outside in the parking lot.

It was a warm afternoon.

The sun felt good on Clare’s face after the cold air conditioning inside.

“Six confirmed victims,” Margaret said.

“Six women and children, possibly more.

How does someone do that? How does someone kill six people and just keep going?” Clare shook her head.

“I don’t know.

” “I thought I’d feel different,” Clare said after a moment.

different.

How? I don’t know.

Satisfied.

But Jessica’s still dead.

Emma and Lily are still dead.

Raasmuson died without ever facing justice for what he did to them.

Margaret looked at her.

But they have their names.

Their families know what happened.

That’s something.

Is it enough? I don’t know, but it’s what we could give them.

A reporter approached, recognizing them from the acknowledgements.

“Excuse me, are you the researchers who helped identify the victims?” Clare and Margaret exchanged glances.

“We’re just people who cared,” Margaret said.

“That’s all.

” Over the following weeks, more details about Raasmuson emerged.

Journalists dug into his past.

His ex-wife gave interviews.

His adult children spoke about growing up with a father who’d burned them with cigarettes, who’d had dead eyes, who’d disappeared from their lives without explanation.

Clare read everything.

She couldn’t help herself.

She needed to understand.

Terry Rasmusson had been a skilled electrician, smart, methodical.

He’d targeted vulnerable women, single mothers, women isolated from their families.

He’d moved them across state lines, making it harder for anyone to track them.

When they disappeared, their families often assumed they’d simply moved on, started new lives.

That was the genius of it, the horrible genius.

Raasmuson chose victims who wouldn’t be immediately missed, who wouldn’t have extensive missing persons investigations, who could simply vanish.

Jessica Morrison had argued with her mother at Thanksgiving 1978.

She’d left California with Raasmuson, angry, defiant.

Her mother had assumed she’d call when she cooled down.

She never did.

Rachel Turner had been having financial problems in 1981.

Her family thought she’d left to start fresh somewhere else.

They’d expected her to reach out eventually.

She never did.

These women hadn’t just been killed.

They’d been erased.

Their identities stripped away.

Their bodies hidden.

Their children taken or killed.

One evening, Margaret called Clare.

Did you read the interview with Rasmuson’s son? I did.

He said his father was fascinated by new identities, that he’d talk about becoming someone else, starting over.

Like it was a game, Clare said quietly.

That’s what scares me.

How casual it all was for him.

How easy.

That evening, Margaret drove to St.

John Baptist Cemetery in Allentown.

The sun was setting, painting the sky orange and purple.

She brought the three stones with her and a permanent marker.

The old headstone was still there.

Here lies the mortal remains known only to God.

But soon there would be a new one.

Margaret knelt on the grass.

It was damp from an earlier rain.

She uncapped the marker, her hands trembling slightly.

On the first stone she wrote Jessica.

On the second, Emma.

on the third Lily.

She placed them carefully at the base of the headstone, arranging them in a line.

Then she sat back and looked at them.

Three names.

Three people who’d been forgotten for 34 years, who’d been reduced to composite sketches and case numbers, who’d been buried without anyone to mourn them.

“You have your names back now,” Margaret said quietly.

“People know who you were.

You’re not forgotten.

The cemetery was quiet except for birds singing in the trees.

Margaret stayed there for a long time, sitting on the grass beside the grave, watching the sunset.

The grass smelled like rain and earth.

The air was cooling as evening came.

She thought about Jessica, 24 years old, a mother.

What had her last moments been like? Had she known what was coming? Had she tried to protect her daughters? She thought about Emma, 8 years old.

Had she been scared? Had she called for her mother? She thought about Lily, just 11 months old, a baby.

She’d never had a chance.

Margaret’s eyes burned with tears.

She let them fall.

When she finally left, she looked back once.

Three stones with three names.

One stone still blank.

The fourth victim still waiting.

The work wasn’t over.

The fourth victim remained unidentified.

Raasmuson’s daughter, the middle child.

Margaret’s lead on Pepper Reed was promising, but it took years to confirm.

Pepper’s family had to be located, DNA samples collected, genealogical trees built.

The same painstaking process that had identified the Morrisons.

Clare and Margaret stayed in touch.

Weekly phone calls turned into daily text messages.

They shared leads, compared notes, supported each other through the frustrations.

The process was slower this time, more difficult.

Pepper Reed had disappeared in 1975, nearly 50 years ago.

Her family was scattered.

Some had died.

Others had moved on, built new lives, didn’t want to be reminded of a tragedy that had happened decades ago.

Margaret called Pepper’s sister, Linda, in 2020.

Mrs.

Patterson, my name is Margaret Hayes.

I’m researching a cold case from New Hampshire.

There was a long silence.

Is this about Pepper? Yes, ma’am.

I believe your sister may have been involved with Terry Rasmuson.

That son of a Linda stopped herself.

Sorry.

Yes, Pepper was pregnant when she disappeared.

Christmas 1975.

She was with some guy.

Never told us his name.

Just said he was working on the rigs.

Then she was gone.

Did you file a missing person’s report? We tried.

Police said she was an adult.

Probably just moved.

They didn’t look for her.

Linda’s voice cracked.

We never stopped looking.

Mrs.

Patterson, I think we may have found your sister’s daughter.

The sound on the other end was something between a gasp and a sob.

Where? New Hampshire.

She died a long time ago.

I’m so sorry.

How? Margaret closed her eyes.

She was murdered by the same man who killed your sister.

There was a long silence.

Then what do you need from me? DNA to confirm the identification.

You’ll have it.

The DNA process took months, then more months for analysis.

Clare and Margaret waited.

The pandemic hit in 2020, slowing everything down.

Labs closed.

Testing was delayed.

The world focused on other things, but they kept working.

Clare spent lockdown in her apartment, searching databases late into the night.

Margaret worked from her kitchen table, her husband bringing her coffee, reminding her to eat.

I found another missing woman, Clare would text.

Already checked her.

Dead end, Margaret would reply.

What about this one? Possible.

I’ll look into it.

The years passed.

2020, 2021, 2022.

The case faded from the news.

Other stories took its place, but Clare and Margaret kept working.

In late 2022, Margaret’s phone rang.

Patricia Cole.

Margaret, I need to talk to you about something.

Margaret set down her tea.

Outside, snow was falling, the first of the season.

What is it? I’ve been building family trees for Pepper Reed’s relatives.

It’s taken years, but I think I have something concrete.

Tell me.

I found a birth certificate from 1976.

Orange County, California.

Baby girl, mother Pepper Reed.

Father, Terry Rasmuson.

Margaret’s breath caught.

What was the baby’s name? Ria.

Ria Rasmuson.

Margaret stood up, her chair scraping against the kitchen floor.

Tom looked up from the living room.

You’re sure? I need to confirm with DNA, but yes, I’m confident.

The timeline matches.

Peppa was pregnant in late 1975.

Ria was born in early 1976.

Peppa disappeared from public records after that.

Ria died between 1979 and 1981.

How long for DNA confirmation? A few months, maybe longer.

Linda Patterson already sent her sample.

Now it’s just a matter of running the tests and building out the family tree to confirm the connection.

After the call, Margaret sat down slowly.

Tom came into the kitchen.

What happened? They found her, the fourth victim.

Her name was Ria.

Tom pulled up a chair.

How do you feel? Margaret looked at the four stones still lined up on her desk.

Three had names written on them now.

The fourth was still blank.

Relieved, she said, but also sad.

Ria was just a little girl, three maybe four years old, and Pepper Reed, her mother, another woman who trusted Rasmuson.

Another woman who’s probably dead and never been found.

You’ve been working on this for how long now? 12 years.

12 years.

Tom repeated.

Maggie, you’ve done something incredible.

You know that, right? I just wanted them to have their names.

And now they will.

All four of them.

Margaret called Clare immediately.

They found her, she said when Clare answered.

The fourth victim.

Her name was Rehea.

Clare was quiet for a moment.

Rehea, she repeated softly.

Rehea Rasmusen, born 1976, daughter of Pepper Reed.

How long for confirmation? Patricia said a few months.

12 years, Clare said.

We’ve been working on this for 12 years.

I know.

Claire, when this is confirmed, when Rehea has her name back.

What happens then? What do you mean? I mean, what do we do? This case has been my life for 12 years.

Our lives.

Clare was quiet.

Outside her apartment window, traffic moved along the street.

Life going on.

People living their normal days, unaware that two women had spent 12 years searching for four dead people.

There are other cases, Clare finally said.

other Jane does.

Other people who need their names back.

You want to keep going, don’t you? Margaret looked at the stones on her desk.

Yes, she said.

I do.

The confirmation came in September 2025.

The New Hampshire State Police held another press conference.

This time it was smaller, less media attention.

The Bearbrook murders were old news by now, but for Clare and Margaret, it was everything.

Rheea Rasmusen, born 1976, died between 1977 and 1981, age 3 or four years old, daughter of Pepper Reed and Terry Rasmuson.

Clare was at work when she got the news.

She excused herself, went to the bathroom, locked herself in a stall, and cried.

Not from sadness, from relief.

8 years.

8 years since they’d identified Jessica, Emma, and Lily.

8 years of searching for the fourth victim.

And now they had her name.

That night, Margaret wrote Reya’s name on the fourth stone.

Her handwriting was less steady than it had been eight years ago.

She was older now.

Her hands shook more, but she wrote carefully, making sure the letters were clear.

Rehea.

She drove to the cemetery one last time.

It was dark, but she’d brought a flashlight.

The beam illuminated the headstone, the three stones she’d placed there years ago.

Jessica, Emma, Lily.

She knelt and placed the fourth stone beside them.

Four names, four people, four lives that had mattered.

Margaret stayed there in the dark, the flashlight beam steady on the stones.

She thought about Pepper Reed, who disappeared in 1975, pregnant with Ria, another victim, another woman who’d trusted the wrong man.

She thought about Rachel Turner, who’ disappeared in 1981 with her baby daughter, whose body had never been found.

She thought about Terry Rasmuson, who’d moved through multiple states, multiple identities, leaving bodies behind him, who’ died in prison in 2010 without ever talking, without ever explaining, without ever showing remorse.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Margaret said to the Stones.

“I’m sorry you were forgotten for so many years, but you have your names now, all four of you.

” She stood slowly, her knees aching.

The night air was cool.

Autumn was coming.

As she walked back to her car, she thought about Clare, about Patricia Cole, about all the hours, all the dead ends, all the frustration, about the moment when everything finally clicked.

Some cases stay with you forever, change you, make you see the world differently.

The Bearbrook murders had done that to Clare, to Margaret, to everyone who’d worked on it.

Three months later, Clare visited the cemetery for the first time.

Margaret had invited her.

They met on a Saturday morning in early December.

The air was cold, frost on the grass.

Their breath came out in white clouds.

They stood together at the grave.

The new headstone had been installed.

It listed all four names.

The stone was simple, gray granite, the lettering clean and clear.

Jessica Morrison, age 24.

Emma Morrison, age 8.

Lily Morrison, 11 months.

Ria Rasmuson, age 3 to 4.

Beloved daughters, taken too soon.

May they rest in peace.

They’re not Jane Does anymore, Clare said.

No, they’re not.

Margaret knelt and touched each of the small stones she’d placed years ago.

Jessica, Emma, Lily, Ria.

The marker ink had faded a bit, but the names were still readable.

I kept these on my desk for 8 years, she said.

Three of them blank, waiting.

Every time I looked at them, I thought about these girls, about how they deserved better.

Clare knelt beside her.

The frost on the grass soaked through her jeans.

It was cold, but she didn’t move.

“My coworker once asked me why I cared so much,” Clare said.

“Why I spent years searching for people I’d never met, people who died before I was even born.

” “What did you tell her? I told her someone had to care.

But that wasn’t the whole truth.

” Clare was quiet for a moment.

The truth is, I could have been them.

When I left the community, when I was 19 and alone, I was so vulnerable.

Continue reading….
Next »