A suspected serial killer, who used various aliases during a cross-country homicide spree, took his darkest secrets to his grave.
In New Hampshire, where he went by the name of Robert “Bob” Evans in the 1980s, authorities revealed Thursday they think he killed two women and three children before moving to California and killing his wife decades later.
Evans was serving time in California for his wife’s murder when he died of natural causes in 2010.
Now investigators have identified Evans, a longtime handyman and drifter who moved stealthily around the country, as the main suspect in a string of unsolved homicides.
“He certainly fits the profile of a serial killer,” Jeffery Strelzin, senior assistant attorney general in New Hampshire told reporters Thursday.
The break in the case came earlier this year. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office in California had just solved a 31-year-old cold case involving a little girl who had been abandoned and remained unidentified, according to Strelzin.
DNA tests linked the girl to relatives of her mother, Denise Beaudin, 23, who was last seen in New Hampshire in November 1981 with Evans and her 6-month-old daughter, Dawn.
‘Happy and secure life’
Known as Lisa Jenson in California, the girl is now a mother of three. In a statement read by Strelzin, she called her story “incredulous,” said she was grateful for being reunited with her grandfather and cousins and asked that her privacy be respected.
“I have three beautiful children and a loving husband, and would like our presently happy and secure life to remain intact and protected,” she said in the statement.
Investigators said the girl was abandoned in California in 1986 by a man named Gordon Jenson, one of many aliases used by Evans throughout the years.
The man, who falsely claimed to be the girl’s father, abandoned her with a family that lived at an RV park in Santa Cruz County, Strelzin said.
Evans worked at the park as an electrician and handyman but disappeared after suspicions were raised about his relationship with the girl. He raised her for about five years before leaving her with neighbors, who eventually gave her up for adoption.
‘A chameleon’
Fingerprints taken from the trailer where Evans lived with the girl matched those of a man named Curtis Kimball, another of Evan’s aliases. Under that name, Evans had been arrested in Cypress, California, in 1985 on DUI, endangering the welfare of a child and other charges, investigators said. Lisa was with him at the time.
Strelzin said fingerprint comparisons showed Evans, Kimball and Jenson were the same person.
“This was a guy who was a chameleon,” Strelzin said.
An arrest warrant was issued in connection with the abandonment of the girl and authorities used booking photos under Evans’ various aliases to identify him as the man who disappeared from New Hampshire with Beaudin.
But Evans eluded arrest until November 1988, when he was picked up in San Luis Obispo for driving a vehicle stolen in Idaho. The owner of the car knew Evans under yet another alias, Strelzin said.
He was locked up on the abandonment charges and released on parole in October 1990, when he again disappeared for the next dozen years, according to investigators.
In 2002, Evans was arrested for the homicide of Eunsoon Jun in her Richmond, California, home, Strelzin said. He had “unofficially” married the woman one year earlier. Her body was found buried under a large amount of cat litter in the basement. The cause of death was blunt trauma to the head and her body showed signs of attempted dismemberment. He was again living under another name.
A grisly discovery
DNA tests later showed that Evans was not the biological father of the girl he had abandoned. Sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for Jun’s murder, Evans died behind bars of natural causes in December 2010.
Strelzin said investigators have now concluded that Evans likely killed Beaudin and disposed of her body.
And the time frame of Beaudin’s disappearance led them to consider a connection between Evans and the grisly discovery of four bodies in 1985 and 2000 near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.
During deer season in November 1985, a hunter in Allenstown found two females in barrels near the park, known for its bogs, lakes and trails. One was a young adult in her twenties; the other was a child between 8 and 11 years old.
In 2000, an investigator drove to the Allenstown scene to check on the proximity of barrels on the property to a road and a mobile home park close by. The property included a trailer and the remains of a burned camp store.
In a barrel, the trooper found the bodies of two girls; one was 2-4 years old, the other was 1-3 years old.
DNA tests have confirmed that the adult, the older child and the youngest were maternally related, according to Strelzin. The adult female had been dismembered; the lower legs of the oldest girl had been severed.
Genetic tests showed that Beaudin was not the adult, according to investigators. Other genetic tests confirmed that Evans was the father of the girl who was between 2 and 4.
At the time of the slayings, Evans did electrical work on the property where the bodies were found.
“Now we’re hoping that by releasing information about the killer that that will help identify those victims and other victims we believe that killer is responsible for,” Strelzin said.