A drifter who died in prison while serving time for murdering his wife has now been tied to the 1981 disappearance of a New Hampshire woman and the bodies of a woman and three children found in barrels in the woods.
"We believe we have our killer," said New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Strelzin. "Now we need to identify and try to find all of his victims."
He said the suspect, known as Bob Evans and a slew of other aliases, fits the profile of a "serial killer" and that investigators are concerned he may have killed others they don't know about.
Investigators said they followed a convoluted DNA trial to tie three cases to Evans, a hard-drinking electrician who allegedly beat his victims to death and dismembered some of them:
- They believe he killed girlfriend Denise Beaudin, who was last seen by her family shortly after Thanksgiving 1981, somewhere between New Hampshire and California. He kept her daughter for several years and then abandoned her in an RV park; she was later adopted and is alive and well.
- They believe he killed a woman and a 9- or 10-year-old girl whose bodies were found in a barrel near a state park in 1985. They also believe he killed two girls, who were between the ages of 2 and 4, in another container in 2000. He is the father of the middle child, and police believe her mother may have been killed as well.
- He admitted killing and dismembering Eunsoon Jun soon after marrying her in a backyard ceremony in California in 2002 and was serving a 15-year sentence when he died in prison in 2010.
Investigators said they were disappointed to learn the killer who had long eluded him died before they learned his name.
"He will never face true justice for what he did," Strelzin said.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about Evans to contact them. Because he changed his name and birth date so often, they are not certain of his true identity, though they think he may have a military background.
Worryingly, there is a 12-year gap in the timeline they have pieced together to trace his travels.
"Given what we know about him, we are concerned about his activities in California for those 12 years," Strelzin said.
"This is somebody who targets females, and children as well. We know he is an abuser," Strelzin said. "This is a guy who was a chameleon."
Beaudin's body has not been found and investigators are not sure where she may have been killed.
Her daughter, who is not related to Evans, said in a statement given to police that she is grateful for the work they have done but pleaded for her privacy.
"Please turn your focus toward the unidentified victims...and hope their families will be offered some closure," she wrote.