A child died at the hands of her serial killer father in 1985. She may have Mississippi ties.
A new documentary called “The Middle Child” takes a closer look at efforts to identify a little girl with ties to South Mississippi who died at the hands of her father, notorious serial killer Terry Peder Rasmussen.
The documentary by independent news station WMUR 9 focuses on the ongoing journey to identify the child whose body was found along with three other homicide victims in two 55-gallon drums in a wooded area at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.
A hunter found the first barrel in 1985, and someone else discovered the second barrel in the same general area in the park in 2000.
In 2019, DNA tests and genetic genealogy led to the identity of the three other victims: Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, 24, and her two daughters, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, 6, and Sarah Lynn McWaters, 1. All of them were last seen in La Puenta, California. They had no ties to Mississippi.
The little girl who remains unnamed is the biological child of Rasmussen, who authorities believe killed her and possibly her mother, along with the three other victims found in the barrels and a California woman in an unrelated case.
Rasmussen never faced punishment for the “Bear Brook Murders.” The girl is believed to have relatives in the Pearl River County area.
In 2010, Rasmussen died in prison while serving time for killing the California woman.
In 2020, Louisiana State Police provided more details about the unidentified girl to help New Hampshire officials in their ongoing efforts to give the girl her name back.
The child was believed to be between 2 and 4 years old at the time of her killing, a release said. She was primarily Caucasian with a small amount of Asian, Black and American Indian ancestries. She had a slight overbite and may have had anemia at one time.
The genealogy suggests that she and her biological mother could be descendants of Thomas “Deadhorse” Mitchell, born in 1836, or William Livings, born in 1826, according to the release. The little girl would be a distant 5X or 6X great-grandchild of one of the men.
A sketch of what the little girl might have looked like was created by Joe Mullins, a senior forensic imaging specialist in the forensic services unit of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Police are asking people in Pearl River County to consider uploading their DNA into GEDmatch or Family Tree DNA if they are comfortable doing so to help increase the likelihood of finding out who the girl was.
To watch the documentary, log on to wmur.com.
Anyone with information about a missing mother or child from Mississippi in the late 1970s or early 1980s should call NH State Police Major Crime Unit at 603-223-3648, email matthew.koehler@dos.nh.gov, or contact your local law enforcement agency.
