A Girl Had No Name for Decades. DNA Finally Identified Her

For Decades, Investigators Could Not Say Her Name

Four victims were found in barrels in a New Hampshire state park.

Three were eventually identified.

One little girl remained known only by a description: the “middle child.”

That changed four decades after the first bodies were discovered.

New Hampshire authorities announced in September 2025 that the final unidentified victim in the Bear Brook homicide case was Rea Rasmussen, born in California in 1976.

The identification did more than place a name on a long-unsolved case. It showed how investigators can now use DNA and family history to answer questions that once appeared impossible to resolve.

The Mystery Began in the Woods

The case dates to 1985, when a hunter discovered a barrel at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.

Inside were the remains of a woman and a young girl.

Fifteen years later, another barrel was found nearby. It contained the remains of two additional girls.

Authorities determined that the four had been killed years earlier.

Eventually, investigators identified three of the victims, but the identity of one child remained unknown.

By 2019, DNA evidence had established another crucial fact: authorities concluded that the unidentified child was the biological daughter of Terry Peder Rasmussen, a serial killer who died in prison in 2010.

Investigators knew who her father was.

They still did not know who she was.

Investigators Had to Rebuild a Family Tree

The breakthrough came through genetic genealogy.

New Hampshire’s cold case unit worked with the DNA Doe Project, which uses genetic information and genealogical research to help identify unknown people.

According to the Associated Press, researchers constructed an enormous family tree containing roughly 25,000 names while searching for relatives who could connect the DNA evidence to a real identity.

Their work eventually led investigators to Pepper Reed, a woman who disappeared in the late 1970s.

Researchers then located a 1976 California birth certificate.

The child’s name was Rea Rasmussen.

Her listed parents were Pepper Reed and Terry Rasmussen.

More than 40 years after the mystery began, every victim found at Bear Brook finally had a name.

Solving One Mystery Opened Another

The identification brought closure to one part of the investigation, but authorities made clear that the case itself is not finished.

Rea’s mother, Pepper Reed, has not been seen since the late 1970s.

Investigators also continue to seek information about Denise Beaudin, another woman linked to Rasmussen who disappeared with her infant daughter in 1981.

The daughter survived and was later abandoned in California.

Authorities have said Rasmussen used numerous aliases and moved through several states.

That complicated efforts to reconstruct his movements and determine whether other crimes might be connected to him.

New Hampshire State Police have continued asking anyone with information about missing women associated with Rasmussen to come forward.

DNA Has Changed What “Cold” Can Mean

The Bear Brook investigation became one of the early high-profile examples of genetic genealogy’s potential in criminal cases.

Traditional DNA matching relies largely on direct comparisons with known samples in law-enforcement databases.

Genetic genealogy can take a different path.

Investigators may identify distant biological relationships and use ordinary genealogical research - birth records, family trees, marriages and other records - to gradually narrow the possibilities.

The process can take months or years.

In Rea’s case, it helped investigators travel backward through generations before finally reaching one child’s birth certificate.

For decades she existed publicly as a question inside one of New Hampshire’s most haunting investigations.

Now that question has an answer.

Her name was Rea Rasmussen.

And the answer to that mystery has given investigators new questions to pursue.

References: Decades-Old Mystery Solved: Girl Identified in New Hampshire Serial Killer Case | Identification of Final Bear Brook Victim

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