Bear Brook Murders
April 02, 2022
Updates in the case of the Bear Brook Murders
In 1985 the plastic wrapped bodies of a woman and girl were discovered in a metal drum in a forest in Allenstown, New Hampshire. As with the discovery of many unidentified victims in parks and forests, the bodies were found by hunters, two brothers, who reported their findings to local authorities. Apparently one of the brothers noticed a foot protruding from the barrel and moved closer to investigate, shocked by the contents.
According to an article on the crime watch daily website(https://crimewatchdaily.com/2016/05/16/small-town-mystery-family-members-found-dead-in-barrels/) , the two victims could have been sealed inside the 55 gallon barrel for up to 5 years before being discovered, meaning that they could have been murdered around as early as 1980. The drum was tipped onto its side near a trail in the park, as you can see in this police photo.
A blogger who is heavily invested in the Quadruple homicide (and is also a resident of Allenstown) has a lot of firsthand information of the area detailed in her posts as well as links to all media. You can visit her blog here [X] http://oakhillresearch.blogspot.co.uk/
The adult female was determined to be in her early-twenties to early thirties, while the child was estimated to be between 5 – 11 years old. They are both listed as Caucasian / possibly Native American.
DNA testing revealed that the two were actually related, although at the time they could not conclude if they were mother and daughter or sisters. They were presumed by most to be a mother and child who had suffered a violent and tragic end. Autopsy showed that they been killed by blunt force trauma to the head. Reconstructions of the pair and descriptive information were circulated, but no one could identify them, nor was there any evidence of who the killer could be. There wasn’t much to go on and the case was as cold as the killing itself.
15 years later the unsolved murder was handed over to a Sgt. John Cody who decided to head out to the scene of the crime to see if he could spot anything that those before him had missed. It was a long shot a decade and a half later, but he ventured out into Bear Brooks Park and made his way to the site. The next lead in the case came not in the form of clues or tip offs- but more bodies. A second barrel was found in the same vicinity as the last, this one spilled out its grisly contents in the form of the bodies of two little girls. One of them was related to the first woman and child found in 1985, the other was not. They were between 1 -4 years old.
As you can see in the picture above the area is not heavily wooded. In fact it was nearby what looks like a trail and an abandoned building that had apparently been burned down some years before. There looked to be a lot of junk around the area where the barrels were found, which is probably why they weren’t discovered for a while. They were most likely assumed to be trash that had been dumped in that spot. This could also indicate that the killer was local, which with the benefit of hindsight, we can now confirm.
Recently, In January 2017, there was an update in the case, linking the murders to a man called Robert Evans. He went by many aliases throughout his life and was dubbed “The Chameleon killer” by the media. Locally in New Hampshire he was known simply as Bob.
Investigators still do not know who the man actually was as he died while in prison in 2010. He had been incarcerated for the murder of his girlfriend at the time. She was a chemist named Eunsoon Jun and the two had been living together for less than a year in an apartment where he had murdered her.
When investigators discovered the deceased woman it was clear that Robert Evan’s had attempted to separate her limbs, possibly to dispose of the evidence. Eunsoon Jun’s body is described in reports as being beneath a mound of cat litter, a Charley Project page states that she was buried under the basement of the property.
In an interview with NBC news Jun’s cousin described Evan’s as “Creepy” and said "I opened the door to him and it was the first time in my life the hairs on the back of my hand raised up. A chill came over me"
Other quotes from the article include:
"He said he owned lots of property, that he was a self-made millionaire, that he used to be a colonel in the Army and that he worked for the CIA and if he wanted to disappear, he could disappear just like that"
And
"He looked at me and said, 'Don't you ever question anything I ever tell you' -- and I knew something wasn't right about him,"
Clearly Jun’s family did not approve of her partner. In fact the relationship was at the center of most of their arguments.
(http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bob-evans-drifter-accused-killing-6-was-pure-evil-n713536)
Evans left a path of crime in his wake as he made his way across the county. He was previously arrested for child molestation, child abandonment and car theft in California. He went under one of his many aliases while living in the state where he had a young girl with him who he claimed was his daughter. I cannot imagine what happened to the child while in his custody. He did not murder the 5 year old girl and instead dumped her with a couple at an RV park and took off.
He would later be caught and served a year in prison after the molestation charge was dropped in an effort to protect the child from further distress.
A recent Boston Globe article describes how the girl, named Lisa, was later adopted and as an adult attempted to track down her biological parents by submitting DNA. She never thought that her curiosity would join up the dots in a cold case more than three decades old. It turned out that she was the child of Evan’s ex-girlfriend/ missing woman Denise Beaudin who was only 23 years old when she disappeared from New Hampshire in 1981. She has never been found, but those who encountered Evan in California revealed that when asked where Lisa’s mother was he would reply with “She’s dead.”
(This doesn’t mean that we should give up the search, though, and any information you have regarding Denise Beaudin can be passed on to the relevant department at 603-668-8711)
Lisa never found out the identity of her dad, but it was confirmed that Evans was not her biological father and that her real name as Dawn. (http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/beaudin_denise.html)
Another discovery that illustrates just how barbaric Evans actually was, was the fact that one of the little girls found in barrel #2 was his daughter. He had murdered his own child.
An earlier article published on the forensic mag website (https://www.forensicmag.com/article/2015/11/oxygen-isotopes-offer-new-details-30-year-old-multiple-murder-case) talks about the results of isotopic analysis from the unrelated girl which indicated that she was not from / had not lived in the same places as the other 3 victims. In fact, she had spent her life near the border of Canada as well as remote North East locations. Since the child has never been identified, it makes you wonder- who was her mother? Is she still around or did she too die at the hand of the chameleon killer?
A page I found on the Charley Project website offers more information on the man who called himself Robert Evans. (http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/beaudin_denise.html) According to the profile he told a lot of people a lot of lies, including lies about his real name, his birth date and year, where he came from and so on. He was an electrician, supposedly had a drinking problem which often times resulted in violent outbursts and was a bit of a drifter who stayed in various types of temporary accommodation. Apparently he worked around 12 miles from Bear Brook park around 1977 – 1980 which puts him in the picture right around the time he may have committed the Quadruple homicide. A detail on this page that I didn’t see elsewhere is that is that the bodies in the barrels were wrapped in plastic and electrical wires, and as I mentioned above, he worked the type of job where wires would be close to hand to use as makeshift rope.
There is a 12 year gap where nothing is known of the whereabouts or actions of the man who was finally known as Robert Evans. It is possible that he could be responsible for the deaths and disappearances of more women and children, but only time will tell.
None of the “Allenstown 4” have been identified to this day and “The Bear Brook murders” case cannot be completely closed as the identities of the women and children are still unknown.
Links and sources:
Here are the links to their Charley Project profiles here with contact information.
Adult Female [X] http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/799ufnh.html
Female child from barrel 1 [X] http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/800ufnh.html
Female child from Barrel 2 (maternally related) [X] http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/801ufnh.html
Female child from Barrel 2 (not biologically related) [X] http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/802ufnh.html
Other sources not detailed in article:
https://patch.com/new-hampshire/concord-nh/nh-officials-ask-public-help-find-woman-missing-35-years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Brook_murders
http://people.com/crime/new-hampshire-woman-denise-beaudin-1981-disappearance/
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