The Chameleon Killer

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Discretion advice. This is ten minute
murder. In nineteen seventy eight, Mary

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Lee's Honeychurch and her two young daughters
vanished into thin air. The last person

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to see Mary Lese was her boyfriend
Terry Rasmussen, who spent time with her

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and her family on Thanksgiving. During
the holiday, Mary's got into a disagreement

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with some of her relatives. She
and Terry decided to leave early, bringing

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her two daughters with them. There
was no sign of Merrile's or her children

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until nineteen eighty five, when two
men out hunting bear Brook State Park noticed

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an overturned oil barrel that had been
left in the forest, with the skeletal

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remains of a human foot visible in
the opening. The men called the police,

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who searched the barrel, finding two
complete human skeletons inside. One belonged

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to an adult woman, but the
other belonged to a young girl. The

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cause of death were both victims was
blunt force trauma, and for years neither

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of them were positively identified. The
search of the area around the oil barrel

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had been patchy at best, and
two more skeletons were eventually found inside a

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second oil barrel. Only one hundred
yards away from the first. After Merilees's

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disappearance, Terry started dating again quickly. His His new girlfriend was another young

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mother, Denise Boden. However,
Denise didn't know that her boyfriend's real name

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was Terry. He introduced himself to
her using the pseudonym Bob Evans. In

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nineteen eighty one, Denise disappeared,
and to this day, her remains have

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not been found. The investigation into
her disappearance was delayed because her family believed

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she'd left town because of money troubles, so they never reported her missing.

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Terry kidnapped Denise's baby, calling the
child Lisa, and cared for her for

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several years. He claimed to be
Lisa's biological father and repeatedly molested her throughout

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her early childhood. Immediately after kidnapping
Lisa, he took on a new pseudonym,

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one that wasn't connected with Denise Boden, calling himself Curtis Kimball. He

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was arrested for drunk driving and child
endangerment in nineteen eighty five, but never

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showed up for his court date.
Instead, he changed his name once again,

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becoming Gordon Jensen, and he got
rid of Lisa by leaving her alone

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at a California RV park. Two
years later, he was arrested for stealing

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a car. By now his name
was Jerry Mockerman, but his past still

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managed to catch up with him and
he was eventually imprisoned for child abandonment.

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After his release, he vanished for
almost a decade. In late nineteen ninety

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nine, Terry reappeared. Now he
was calling himself Larry Vanner, and once

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again he had a new girlfriend.
Two years after he and Yun Soon June

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started dating, they got married,
and the following year, Yun Soon also

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vanished. Her dismembered remains were found
shortly afterwards, covered with cat litter to

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hide the smell of decomposition. Just
like the bodies and the barrels, the

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cause of death was blunt forced trauma
to the head. Terry was arrested in

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two thousand and two and received a
minimum sentence of fifteen years for Eun Sun's

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murder. Initially, the police thought
they were just dealing with a guy who

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had murdered and dismembered his wife.
During the investigation, Terry's past lives began

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to resurface, and the officers discovered
that Larry Vanner had also been Curtis Kimball

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and Gordon Jensen. Fingerprints connected him
to Curtis Kimball's arrest for child endangerment and

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revealed that he had once been the
guardian of a young child. Later on,

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a detective revealed that she believed Terry
had only decided to plead guilty for

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Eun Sun's murder after he found out
that there were plans to order a paternity

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test for Lisa, the girl Terry
claimed was his biological daughter. After Lisa's

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paternity tests came back negative, the
mystery of Lisa's biological parents continued, but

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Terry did not live to see the
crimes become public knowledge. In twenty ten,

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at the age of sixty seven,
he died from lung disease in jail.

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SU's case was passed on to Detective
Peter Hedley of the San Bernardino Police

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Department. In twenty thirteen, genetic
testing had advanced and genealogy databases could now

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be used to trace family trees.
With the help of a genetic genealogist,

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Lisa discovered that her mother was missing, woman Denise Boden. When Denise's father

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was shown one of Terry's mugshots from
the time that he had been arrested under

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the name Curtis Kimball, he identified
him as Bob Evans, his daughter's boyfriend

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at the time of her disappearance.
In August twenty seventeen, investigators were finally

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able to reveal the real name of
the killer to the public. They had

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confirmed Terry's real identity by matching his
DNA to a sample of one of his

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living biological children. Two years later, testing of the four skeletons in the

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oil barrels was completed and revealed their
connection to Terry. The adult skeleton in

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the first barrel was identified as marylyn
Les Honeychurch, Terry's missing girlfriend from nineteen

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seventy eight. The juvenile skeleton was
her oldest daughter, six year old Mary

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Elizabeth. Her baby daughter, one
year old Sarah Lynn, had been disposed

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of in the second barrel, along
with another unidentified female toddler. Although the

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toddler wasn't related to Mary Leise or
her daughter's she was related to Marilese's boyfriend

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and the last person who had seen
the family alive. In the barrel next

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to Sarah Lynne was the biological daughter
of Terry Rasmussen. It appeared that Terry

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had killed one of his own children
and disposed of the body along with his

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other victims. While the identity of
the third child in the barrels has never

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been discovered, detectives believed that Terry
also killed the child's biological mother and disposed

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of her remains in another location.
In the years that Lisa was under Terry's

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care, he had no confirmed victims, but shortly after Lisa was abandoned in

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nineteen eighty six, she told detectives
that she had several siblings. When asked

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where her siblings were now, she
told them quote they died eating grass mushrooms

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when they were out camping. At
the time, the detectives didn't realize the

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sinister implications of Lisa's answer. Now, with the knowledge that Lisa's guardian was

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a serial killer who murdered her mother, police believe that Terry had murdered several

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other people throughout the nineteen eighties.
Because of his numerous aliases, Terry became

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known as the Chameleon Killer. Doctor
Jack Levin, a criminologist to analyze Terry's

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crimes, acknowledged that Terry had been
very different from most other serial killers he

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had studied. Quote. What distinguishes
Terry Rasmussen from most serial killers, doctor

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Levin said, is that he targeted
people with whom he had a relationship.

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Most serial killers would never do that, It's the last thing they would do.

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Instead, they focus on complete strangers. Terry had repeatedly done the one

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thing that most serial killers tried to
avoid, choosing victims where he could be

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easily connected to them. One of
the most alarming things about Terry's case was

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the amount of time that he was
unaccounted for and the number of potential identities

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he may have gone by during those
periods of time. Throughout his adult life,

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he spent time living in at least
nine different states before he settled in

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New Hampshire and killed Merrily's Honeychurch.
Although he only ever had six confirmed victims,

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he was suspected of killing several more. In nineteen eighty, Terry had

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lived only a few miles away from
Loreen Ron, a fourteen year old girl

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that went missing in April of that
year. Her body was never found.

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Only a few months after Loreen's disappearance, twenty five year old Denise Denaut was

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reported missing after leaving a bar in
the area, and Denise didn't just live

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close to Terry, she lived on
the same street as Terry. San Joaquin

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County law enforcement believed that Terry might
have been the murderer of Amanda Deza,

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whose body was found in a California
canal in nineteen ninety five. Her remains

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had been shut inside an old refrigerator, and she had died the same way

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as all of Terry's victims, severe
blunt forced trauma to the head. After

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more than two decades, as Jane
Doe, who was called the Lady in

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the Fridge, Amanda's real identity was
confirmed in twenty twenty three, but the

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identity of her killer has never been
discovered. There were multiple factors that allowed

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Terry to continue his crime spree and
make his aliases convincing to other people.

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He committed his crimes in different states, traveling the country, and changing his

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identity every time he had a brush
with the law or killed another victim.

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His commitment to other identities was so
polished that it took the authorities decades to

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connect several of his aliases together and
reveal his real name. Investigation into the

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rest of Terry's victims, including the
unidentified child in the oil barrel, is

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still underway. That's ten minute Murder
for today brief and bingeable true crime.

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I'm Joe, the host, and
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