Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Chameleon Killer” Terry Peder Rasmussen

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

He found a way to fit into his new surroundings everywhere he moved. Terry Rasmussen would change his name, marry someone new, then brutally murder them – only to move somewhere else and do it all over again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussions of domestic violence, child abuse, murder, and sexual abuse involving children. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. In November 1985, a hunter shouldered his gun and walked through the woods of Bear Brook State Park. The weather was calm and cold, a perfect New Hampshire day. There was no place he'd rather be. He marveled at nature's beauty with each step. Trees swayed in the breeze.

Birds nestled in the bare branches. He let out a sigh and watched his breath float through the crisp air. As he walked, an object caught his attention in the distance. In the middle of a clearing, a rusted metal barrel was tipped over on its side. He couldn't see much, but he did smell something. The stench of death. Maybe a raccoon or a fox had crawled in there to die. The hunter slowly approached to get a better look.

He peered inside and saw an industrial plastic sheet, and there was something wrapped up in it. The hunter's eyes went wide. He was looking at a pair of humans. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a Spotify original from Parkast. Every episode we dive into the mind. and madness of serial killers. Today, we're dissecting the many lives of Terry Rasmussen,

the chameleon killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. In the first part of this episode, we'll learn about the darkness Terry had when he was just a little boy. Then we'll hear how we went on to violently hurt the people closest to him. Later, we'll see how, of 20 years, Terry went on a shapeshifting rampage. He'd constantly switch his name, marry someone new, then brutally murder them, only to move somewhere else and do it all over again. This is an episode full of ever-changing identities, multiple aliases, and plenty of twists and turns. But just remember that there's one person at the center of it all, the chameleon killer.

We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything,

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This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L. Every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen.

Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. As humans, it's in our nature to change. We've been doing it since the dawn of our species, roughly 200,000 years ago. Adaptation has allowed us to thrive. Without it, we may have been dead long ago. Now, being malleable is a part of everyday life. Most of us suggest to our surroundings to fit in and make new friends.

But not every transformation is innocent. Some choose to adapt for a more nefarious reason, as a disguise. Terry Rasmussen was one such chameleon, capable of changing at a moment's notice, assuming new identities whenever he needed to start over fresh, and he never broke character. Because he altered his alias and persona so many times, we don't know much about him. But there was a period of time when he wasn't trying to hide, his childhood. Terry was born two days before Christmas, 1943, in May I'm sorry. Colorado. His family lived there for a few years before settling in the Phoenix area in the early

1950s. Eight-year-old Terry with his clear blue eyes and shaggy brown hair did his best to fit in at the local elementary school. But try as he might, the boy was different. In an interview with the podcast, Bear Brook, a true crime story, a family member spoke about Terry's childhood and retold the following story. One day, Terry and his extended family, gathered at a local park. While other children rushed around and adults chatted, Terry carved a watermelon with a knife. But then, something happened. Maybe another kid tried grabbing the blade or an adult told him to sit down.

We're not sure. But whatever it was, Terry snapped. The boy erupted in anger, chasing whoever had upset him around the park with the knife in hand, threatening to stab them. Terry's family quickly subdued him, but everyone was shaken. They wondered how such violence could come from a child. Clearly, something was wrong. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.

As a reminder, she is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. When it comes to childhood and teenage aggression, many factors are at play. According to a study from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brandeis University, one of the most common predictors is when a child endures physical punishment in the home. Another precursor is if a child displays an inhibited temperament similar to shyness. Inhibited children are socially withdrawn and uncomfortable around new friends. But unlike shy kids,

they might lash out when placed in a new situation. One of the studies authors Malcolm Watson said, quote, the more inhibited kids are, the more likely they are to be a grand. Several other factors could have been at play for Terry, including mental illness. But according to a family member, the Rasmusins didn't call the boy's behavior a breakdown or the result of a mental disorder. Instead, they called it darkness. Terry seemed to keep this darkness hidden through the years as he lived a relatively quiet life, that is, until he turned 16. In 1960, Terry dropped out of high school after a sophomore year and joined the Navy. He spent

the next six years stationed up and down the West Coast, training to be an electrician, before transferring to a base in Okinawa, Japan. But strangely, there was a mysterious three-year gap in his official record, from 1961 to 1964. While we don't know exactly what he was doing then, we can guess, because this was during the Vietnam War, and a hole in his timeline could mean that he was involved in covert missions along the front lines. Sometime after his service,

the 23-year-old vet moved to Hawaii and took a job at his parents' shoe store. It was there that Terry met a woman. Not a lot is known about their courtship, and out of respect, her name has remained private for decades. In the summer of 1968, the pair married, but they didn't stay in Hawaii long.

Over the next four years, the couple moved several times, eventually landing in northern California, Bay Area. By then they had four children, two of them twins. But eventually, the darkness in Terry came to the surface. While we don't know the specifics, he and his wife fought constantly, and Terry often screamed at her. Seeing this alarming turn in her husband, Terry's wife briefly separated from him in 1972. However, the split didn't last long. While Terry had a temper, he was also a skilled manipulator.

His dazzling blue eyes could disarm anyone, and he often used his charm to seem sympathetic and understanding. Perhaps because of this, the couple soon reconciled. But if Terry's wife thought the brief split might scare him into changing his ways, she was mistaken, because after Terry moved the family back to his hometown of Phoenix for work, the couple picked up right where they left off. The children cowered in fear during their parents' arguments, and when mom and dad weren't going at it, Terry took out his anger and frustration on his kids. His crystal blue gaze, which could be so disarming, was also spiteful.

The children knew never to cross him or else they'd face a brutal punishment. In one instance, Terry burned his young son with the butt of a cigarette. Eventually, Terry's wife reached her second breaking point. This time, she wasn't taking any chances. We don't know all the details, but in June 1975, police arrested 31-year-old Terry on aggravated assault charges. It's unclear if Terry assaulted his wife or if he spent any time in jail. However, we do know that shortly after the couple's marriage ended. His wife packed the family's things, took the kids, and headed for Payson, Arizona.

Terry was left with an empty house and a desolate business. blank slate. The life he'd spent years cultivating was gone, and he was devastated. But Terry wasn't going to let his now ex-wife have the last laugh. A year later, he unexpectedly showed up at her doorstep. And he wasn't alone. He had a young woman on his arm, who no one of the family recognized. It seemed like he was showing off, or letting his family know he had the upper hand. The children hadn't seen their father in months, but he wasn't interested in rekindling their relationship. Instead, he was just there to gloat and take off. It was the last time they ever saw their father. His daughter, Diane, spoke about this moment in an interview with Bear Brook,

a true crime story. She said her mother thought the divorce might have pushed him over the edge. And after the split, it's possible that Terry vowed to never let another woman have that much control over him again, that he'd make sure no one would be able to leave him the way his first wife had. Even if that meant he had to kill them first. Coming up,

Terry takes on his first alias. Transport your senses with Saltichanado's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, spritz on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp seabries with hafresco paraizo.

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two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Now back to the story. By 1978, 35-year-old Terry Rasmussen's disastrous marriage had ended with his ex-wife leaving him. He then relocated to Texas and tried to forget that blow to his ego. Barry has passed and move on. And it seems like he did just that with 24-year-old Marlise Elizabeth Honey Church. Marlise was full of joy and had a great sense of humor. She desperately loved her kids, six-year-old Marie and one-year-old Sarah, who came from two previous marriages. She was very close with her family and leaned on them in times of need.

But all that changed when she began seeing Terry. Terry wanted her all to himself. Soon after meeting, he drove a wedge between Marlees and her family. Then, on Thanksgiving in 1978, this strain turned into a complete break. While in California, Marlis introduced her parents to her boyfriend. The holiday devolved into a nightmare. Marlice and her mom got into a big fight, possibly because of Terry's age, and Marlees stormed out of the house. Her sister told ABC News, quote,

they left, never called, never contacted nobody, just disappeared. It was the last time Marlisse's family saw her. A few weeks later, Terry wanted to move Marlise and her daughters across the country to New Hampshire. There she'd be further from her support system and even more reliant on him. He probably didn't want her family to find her, so in addition to the big move, he took another precaution. He changed his name to Bob Evans. In late 1978, 35-year-old Bob Evans rolled into Manchester, New Hampshire with his wife Marlise and her daughters. Much like Terry, Bob had thinning brown hair, dazzling blue eyes, and was trained in electrical wiring.

Soon after arriving in the peaceful New England town, Bob found lucrative work as a head electrician, helping to decommission an old five-story textile mill. Bob's work was challenging. He checked for dangerous currents running through the heavy machinery. If clear, workers then dismantled the materials, placed them on flatbed trucks, and drove them 20 minutes away to their boss's property on the outskirts of Bear Brook State Park.

According to an interview with a former coworker on the Bear Brook podcast, Bob did his best to fit in. But just like Terry, some found him a bit odd. He always wore the same long green coat to work every day, no matter the weather, and he took naps in a private utility room, which he kept padlocked during the day. Sometimes his coworkers would hear screams coming from inside. Bob said they were just nightmares, but the others had never heard of anyone having a nightmare like that. Not everyone was put off, though.

He got along with his boss, Ed Gallagher. and when they weren't at the mill, the two hung out at Ed's General's store in Bear Brook State Park. They talked shop, but that was about it. It's likely Bob never mentioned his past or his personal life. He kept things private. It doesn't seem like anyone at the mill knew about Marlis or their kids. There wasn't really a record of the children at all. It seems no one remembered seeing them at school, playing in the streets, or going to the grocery store with their mom.

which might be why it doesn't appear that anyone noticed when the couple's two daughters became three. At some point, a young girl joined the family. She was no more than two years old, which put her age right between Marlice's kids. Almost nothing is known about this middle child. We don't know her mother's name, where she was born, or how she ended up living with the family. We don't even know when she ended up living in the family. but it's likely she was with Bob and Marlees during at least some of their time in New Hampshire. Bob probably liked that his family was such a mystery,

because that meant he could do anything he wanted to them, and no one would ever know. The police never uncovered the details of what happened between 1979 and 1981. But based on the evidence, Bob most likely killed Marlis and all three children. From what authorities later gathered with forensics, all four of them were beaten severely. At least Barlis and her oldest child died from blunt force trauma to the head. It's hard to fathom what would cause someone to harm their partner and children. Jack Levin, a criminologist and professor emeritus at Northeastern University, gave an interview with Boston 25 news. In it, he said that most serial killers target complete strangers.

but this murderer went after people with whom he had a close relationship. Therefore, Levin believed he may have been triggered by intimacy. He might not have, quote, been able to control himself when he had an intimate relationship, either as a father, guardian, or a husband. And he decided when he didn't like the way things were going, he would get even with his victims. After the slaughter, Bob knew he needed to cover his tracks. We don't know exactly how he did it.

but we can guess. That night he might have taken the bodies to the old mill where he worked and found two 55-gallon drums. He dumped the youngest two children into one of the barrels. He then took Marlise's body and wrapped her and the eldest daughter's remains in a thick plastic sheet, put them in the other drum and sealed the lid. Days later, his fellow workers might have hauled the barrels onto their flatbed truck, Totally unaware that inside were the bodies of a woman and three children. Once the truck arrived at Ed Gallagher's property,

the workers could have dumped the barrels, along with other debris, on the outskirts of Bear Brook. With the family's identity so well hidden, no one questioned where they'd gone. And it seems that those at the mill were none the wiser of the role they possibly played in hiding the evidence. By the fall of 1981, 37-year-old Bob was ready for another relationship.

He began seeing 23-year-old Denise Bowden from Manchester, New Hampshire. Denise had a daughter who was only six months old. Just like Terry did with Marlis, Bob likely made Denise spend all of her time with him and drove her away from her family. And strangely enough, things ended on Thanksgiving again. That's when Denise saw her loved ones for the last. time. They went to her apartment a few days later, but she was gone. Little to nothing is known about Denise's time with Bob. It's believed that sometime after Thanksgiving, he killed her and hit

her body. However, even that is speculation. All that's known for sure is that Denise vanished. And eventually, Bob Evans did too. About two and a half years later, Curtis Mayo Kimball rolled into Southern California. The three-year-old girl he claimed was his daughter Lisa. Like Terry and Bob, Curtis also had shaggy hair and sparkling blue eyes. He and his daughter moved into an RV park. In March 1984, the 40-year-old single dad started work at an electrical company. The California Dream was well within reach.

That is, until May, 1985. After a night of drinking, Curtis wrecked his car. with Lisa in the back seat. When officers arrived at the scene, they gave him a DUI, charged him with endangering the welfare of a child, and took his fingerprints. Curtis knew he'd burned his identity,

and it would only be a matter of time before the police figured out his real name. Soon, neighbors saw the electrician packing up his and Lisa's things. Then one morning, they were gone. Curtis headed north to the Central Coast, hoping his past wouldn't count. catch up with him. Meanwhile, halfway across the country, some New Hampshire residents would soon unearth

a horrific discovery. That fall, a hunter found a barrel hidden in the woods on Ed Gallagher's property next to Bear Brook State Park. He peered inside. All that remained of Marlees and her oldest daughter were their skeletons and hair. It had been five or so years. Everything else had decayed. Given the state of the remains, no one could identify them. The discovery broke the hearts of everyone in Bear Brook. No one believed something so atrocious could happen in their small community. This included the police, who had no idea who might have done it, or who the two victims were. Today, authorities would quickly plug any DNA samples into a nationwide database, but in the mid-1980s, this kind of technology was just starting to

to be used. Given this, it wasn't a feasible tool at the time, and interviews with the property's owner, Ed, came to a dead end too. Without anything to go on, the authorities had no reason to suspect Bob Evans, and even if they did, he'd be hard to find, because Bob no longer existed. In January, 1986, just outside of Santa Cruz, California, a man named Gordon Jensen settled into his trailer home. Like Terry, Bob, and Curtis, this Gordon had pale blue eyes and shaggy thinning hair. He lived at the holiday host RV Park with his daughter Lisa, who was around four or five. As a handyman who specialized in electrical work, Gordon was pleasant and friendly, helping other residents with anything they needed. However, one thing was off limits,

his past, and when people asked Gordon about Lisa's mother, he gave conflicting answers. Once he said she'd died of cancer, another time he said she'd left him after giving birth. It was clear to Gordon that Lisa was becoming a liability. He realized if he wanted to truly transform, he needed to leave Lisa behind, and fast. He soon got an opportunity. An older woman at the trailer park had bonded with Lisa, and one day she told Gordon that her own daughter had problems conceiving and might consider adoption. The handy, man proposed that the woman's daughter and her husband could adopt Lisa and take her off his hands. The elderly woman loved the idea, so they agreed to a trial period. She took Lisa to San Bernardino

a few hours away to meet her potential new parents. But while there, the family uncovered a dark secret. Based on some of Lisa's behaviors, they began to suspect that she'd suffered sexual abuse. Lisa also started to talk about disturbing things that Gordon, Jensen had done to her. The family took Lisa to the police to report all this, and in the meantime, tried to formally adopt the young girl. But when authorities went to the RV park looking for Gordon, he was gone. However, they weren't going to let a child abuser get away that easily. They dusted some equipment he had worked on for prints. When authorities plugged them into the database, Gordon's

information popped up. There was a match. But it wasn't who they were. were expecting. The name said Curtis Mayo Kimball, a SoCal electrician with a DUI. The police realized Gordon and Curtis were one and the same. The cops didn't know it yet, but they'd only just begun to scratch the surface of his true identity, because of course Curtis Mayo Kimball, Gordon Jensen, and even Bob Evans, all aliases of the same man, Terry Rasmussen. It would be another two years before Terry showed up again.

In 1988, police in San Luis Obispo, California pulled him over for driving a stolen car. At this point, he was using the name Gerald Mockerman. After fingerprinting him, two other names popped up, Curtis Mayo Kimball, who had warrants out for his arrest, and Gordon Jensen, who had a warrant for child abuse. abandonment and molestation. They arrested and charged Terry under the name Curtis. Using a plea deal, he pled guilty to the abandonment charge, and his child molestation and stolen vehicle charges were dropped.

A judge sentenced him to three years. After only 18 months, they released the 46-year-old on parole, which meant he wasn't allowed to leave the state. But of course, this chameleon wasn't one to play by the rules. Though this Curtis was on parole, Terry was a free man. Only a day after being let out, he fled. By the end of the decade, he was in the Bay Area, under yet another alter ego. It would only be a short time before he killed again.

Coming up, the chameleon killer changes his skin for the last time. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide. may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zephound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide-containing products

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All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Slot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino and San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Now the end of the story. For two decades, Terry Rasmussen evaded police by relocating to a new city and changing his name. He'd gone by many aliases, like Gordon Jensen, Curtis Kimball, and Bob Evans, the name under which he'd killed his whole family. But after breaking parole in 1990, he needed one more.

So while Terry's reign had ended, Larry's was just beginning. Nine years later, in 1999, 55-year-old Larry Vanner lived in the Bay Area, earning money as an electrician and handyman. He'd spent much of his life on the move, but now that he was getting older, he felt an urge to settle down. That year, Larry met 42-year-old Eun-soon June, a free-spirited chemist with a passion for pottery. They were an unlikely pair. While Larry was reserved, Eun-Soon was quite bohemian. But as much as she loved exploring religions and meeting new people, She was lonely.

She'd never found the love of her life, and that could have made her vulnerable. Unsun's cousin, Elaine, spoke to the Bear Brook podcast about the relationship. She said at first she was delighted that Eun-sun had met someone, especially a nice electrician with dazzling blue eyes. However, when Eun-sun walked into Elaine's New Year's Eve party with her boyfriend at her side, Elaine was aghast. She said, when I opened the door and saw his face, I had a chill run down my back that I've never in my life ever had before. He was unkempt and unclean with dirt under his fingernails.

Elaine thought she'd at least try to get to know him before making any judgments, so later in the evening she sat across from him and asked what he did for a living. Larry claimed he was a retired Army colonel. Elaine perked up. Her boss was a former colonel, too. Perhaps Larry knew him. But Larry's response was unsettling. He leaned close and growled,

Don't ever question me or ask me again about my past. Despite this tension, Eun-sun enjoyed herself at the party, and a few days later, she called her cousin to get her read on the new boyfriend. Elaine told her about their chat and warned her, quote, Before you get too involved with him, make sure everything he is telling you is the truth. Please do that for me. Unsun got upset.

She was finally happy and nobody supported her. Her cousin's concern must have hit a nerve because it was the last time Elaine ever spoke to Unsun. Just like with Marlise and Denise, a holiday party once again led to estrangement. In the year 2000, on the other side of the country, a second barrel was found in the Bear Brookwood. about 100 yards from the first one.

Inside, they found the bodies of Marlisa's youngest daughter and the unnamed third child. For residents, it was like reliving a bad dream. The authorities tried their best to identify them, but they came up empty just like before. They were clueless that the murderer was in California, thousands of miles away, preparing to kill again. Over the next few months, Larry Vanner continued getting between Eun-sun and her family. She stopped answering phone calls, and after the pair moved into a home in Richmond, California, she severed all ties with her loved ones. About a year after the New Year's Eve party, the two married in an unofficial backyard ceremony.

For Eun-sun, the day must have been bittersweet. Her husband wasn't perfect. Still, she hoped in marriage, things would improve. But Larry knew how his relationships tended to go, and it wasn't long before another urge took over, an all-too-familiar darkness. What happened next is open to speculation. But based on later police reports, it might have gone like this.

A few months after their wedding, Larry snapped. Either in the couple's basement where Eun-sun liked to do pottery or a crawl space close by, Larry attacked. In his hand was a bat or perhaps a shovel. He swung and bludgeoned Eun-sun on the side of her head, sending blood splatter onto nearby ductwork. She went down instantly. Larry had to handle the aftermath.

And unlike when he was living as Bob Evans, he didn't have easy access to barrels or remote park. He had to get creative. He told his next-door neighbor to ignore any noxious odors coming from his house. He said he'd done some exterminating and dead rats were bound to rot in the crawl spaces. But that excuse wouldn't cover him for long. So he went to a local pet store where he asked for 10 bags of cat litter. The owner thought the request was odd, but followed through on the sale. In the basement crawl space, a few steps down from the back of the garage, Larry dismembered

Eun-sun's body and covered it with bag after bag of cat litter. While some serial killers crave notoriety, like Dennis Rader or the Zodiac killer, the chameleon killer didn't seek the limelight. He took great care to conceal his crimes. As criminologist Jack Levin said to reporter Bob Ward, quote, this killer had to make certain that the bodies weren't found at all, because then the authorities would know he had a relationship with them. hiding Eun-sun's body, Larry must have breathed to sigh relief. All he had to do now was head somewhere new and change his name. He just needed some time to get his affairs in order. Picking up and starting over didn't happen in a day. But time wasn't on his side. In the spring of 2002, around the time that

Larry killed his wife, her friend called the house. She wanted to speak to Eun-sun about an upcoming trip they'd planned together. Larry, cunning as always, lied. He said Unsun had gone out of town to look after her dying mother. She'd be back in a couple of days. Larry likely hoped the friend would lose interest and he could leave town. However, she didn't give up that easily and continued to call. Each time she phoned, Larry gave a different excuse. Unsun was too emotionally fragile to talk, or she had just left for another trip. Eventually, the friend worried that something was wrong and filed a missing person report. Police called Larry in for voluntary questioning.

The electrician knew he was running out of options. If he skipped town, the cops would get a warrant and find his wife's body. So he had no choice he had to play ball. Over several hours, detectives grilled him about Unson's whereabouts, and he feigned ignorance. Then, they asked if he be willing to have his fain. fingerprints taken. Thinking it over, Larry agreed. The consent was surprising, but he'd done this before. Maybe he hoped it would take days for a match, leaving him time to get out of town. But that wasn't in the cards. Within a few hours, the authorities

got a hit, or more precisely, several of them. For Gordon Jensen, Curtis Mayo Kimball, and others, too. As they listed off his aliases, the killer's eyes briefly went wide with surprise, but this so-called Larry kept his cool. Either way, the detectives now knew his status as a parolee under Kimball's identity. This meant they could search his home any time they wanted. When officers arrived at the house in November, nothing stood out at first. The place certainly wasn't spotless, but it didn't scream murder scene either. They kept looking, hoping to find some sign of Unsun.

It didn't take them long. They checked the stairs in the back of the garage and walked down into the dark crawl space. There they saw the pile of cat litter. It was three feet tall, nearly waist high. Work lights towered around it, like some sort of home improvement project. Carefully, they sifted through the pile. The first thing that emerged was Unsun's most. Mummified foot, still wearing a pink flip-plop.

That was it. The police charged the 58-year-old with murder. After decades of evading the cops, the chameleon killer, Terry Rasmussen, would finally pay for at least one of his crimes. In 2003, he stung the court when he stood up and pleaded guilty. With that, the case was closed. Terry, as Curtis Mayo Kimball, was sentenced to 15 years to life for the murder of Unsun Jun. Because of his previous arrest record, and likely because of the various names that popped up after running his prince,

detectives knew Curtis Kimball was also an alias. But with the case firmly closed and little information about him before he showed up in California, it was all they had. When soundmates asked Terry about his past, he never told them the truth, that the likely reason he pled guilty was so the cops wouldn't continue digging. Because if they had, they might have discovered his real name, and that he wasn't just responsible for one murder, but many. In 2010, seven years after being put behind bars, 67-year-old Terry died from lung cancer and pneumonia.

At this point, authorities still didn't know or had not yet revealed his real name. He'd successfully taken his horrible secret to the grave. To many, this was the end of the story. Justice had been served. One less murderer in the world. But others were still looking for answers. Terry's children wondered what happened to their father. Marlisa's family questioned her fate. Lisa, the girl who was rescued from Terry after he'd abused her, had grown into a 29-year-old woman. As a reminder, Lisa thought her dad was Terry while he was using the names Curtis Mayo Kimball

and Gordon Jensen. But when Terry was arrested, authorities took a DNA sample. It was this sample that proved Lisa was not his biological daughter. So she wanted to know who her real parents were. In 2013, a detective at the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office contacted Lisa to help her track them down. Through this investigation, authorities found out her real name was actually Dawn, and her mother was Denise Bowden. That's when everything unraveled. Over the next several years, the police followed the threat of Terry's relationship history and multiple aliases. This led them to uncover the identities of three of the bodies in the barrels, Marlise, Marie, and Sarah Honeychurch. The only victim left unnamed was the

third girl. Through DNA testing, they discovered that she was actually Terry's biological daughter. Terry's crimes eventually came to light long after his death in prison. However, the affair reopened old wounds for all who'd known him. Many, like his co-workers, were left second-guessing interactions they had years before. In an interview on the Bear Brook podcast, one of Terry's co-workers at the mill, Mark, was asked if he worried about having inadvertently helped a serial killer with his crimes. The question referred to the idea that mill employees might have transported the barrels containing Marlis and the kids without knowing their bodies lay inside. The man solemnly nodded because he just couldn't remember. But no one is to blame

except for Terry. The sad yet horrifying reality is that he was good at what he did. He used his charm to seduce women, isolate them from their families, and dispose of them when he wanted to start over. Terry could change his name, fit into new surroundings, and disappear. It took decades to find the chameleon killer because he was so good at disguising himself. After all, you can't catch someone who doesn't exist. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back soon with another episode. For more information on Terry Rasmussen, amongst the many sources we used, we found Bear Brook, a true crime story, produced by New Hampshire Public Radio and the work of the New Hampshire

Department of Justice extremely helpful in our research. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast, executive produced by Max Cutler. Our head of programming is Julian Boireau. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as our head of production

and quality control by Spencer Howard. Stacey Neumick is our supervising editor and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Robert Tyler Walker, edited by Ben Carrow and Kate Murdoch, fact-checked by Claire Cronin, researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood, produced by Bruce Katovich and sound design by Michael Motion. Our hosts are Vanessa Richardson and me, Greg Poulson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again.

I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Do you want to hear something spooky? Some Monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves.

Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me. Your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.