Detective Who Cracked NH Cold Case Says Killer Was Intelligent, Calculated
ALLENSTOWN, NH (CBS) - A California detective who made a major break in a New Hampshire cold case says she's hoping it will lead to more answers.
"It feels really good to know you take something… and investigate and work collaboratively with other agencies, and have it come out this way, is really a positive thing," said Captain Roxane Gruenheid, of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office.
Gruenheid arrested a man who went by Larry Vanner, and many other names, including Bob Evans. He was convicted of murdering a woman he'd married less than a year earlier, Eunsoon Jun. He died in prison in 2010.
But Gruenheid stayed on the case, noticing in some of his letters, he wrote about a daughter he'd given away to a couple in another California county in 1986. Gruenheid contacted authorities there, who found the girl, named Lisa.
DNA tests showed Lisa was not the murderer's daughter, after all. She is, however, the daughter of his former girlfriend Denise Beaudin, who disappeared with him and her daughter from their Manchester, New Hampshire home in 1981.
The revelation set off an investigation in Manchester last week, where police scoured the basement of the home where the couple lived 35 years ago. Denise Beaudin still has not been located.
"He was very smart, very intelligent, very calculated," said Gruenheid. "When I asked him something about where he may have come from or about his history, he stopped talking, kind of leaned in and basically told me in no uncertain terms that information was none of my business."
The DNA test also connected the man known in New Hampshire as Bob Evans, to another local mystery. He is the father of one of four homicide victims discovered in steel drums in Bear Brook Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire.
Retired detective John Cody found one of them. "It looked like there was something white inside," Cody said. "So I went back and got my flashlight and shined it on it, and you could see it was human bone."
It was only a few yards from the spot where a store was torn down. Bob Evans worked at the store as an electrician. He knew the owner of the land where the bodies were discovered, because he worked with him at Waumbec Mills.
In all, four unidentified bodies have been found in that spot: a woman, her two daughters, and Evan's daughter. Detectives have not found any names.
"It's like you're piecing your case together backwards," said Cody. "It's up to the public to help now."