The unidentified child was murdered sometime between 1979 and 1981, authorities believe. Her body was found in a steel barrel in Allenstown, N.H., along with another child in 2000, 15 years after hunters found another steel barrel containing the bodies of a woman and an 11-year-old girl.

She still has no name, but authorities on Friday released a new digital image they hope will finally lead to the identification of the child who was both the daughter of serial killer Terry P. Rasmussen and a victim of the man believed to have killed at least six people before dying in a California prison in 2000.


Authorities have since identified the woman as Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, who was last seen in California on Thanksgiving in 1978, and her daughters, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn, born in 1971, and Sarah Lynn McWaters, born in 1977.

But the girl has so far not been identified, although DNA testing shows that she was the biological child of Rasmussen, who lived in New Hampshire in the late 1970s and 1980s using the alias of Bob Evans, authorities have said.

Rasmussen died while serving a 15-year prison term for murdering his girlfriend in California. Using DNA, family histories, and classic police work, authorities have been able to discover his identity and much of his life history, but have not yet identified the girl or located her mother, whom authorities believe was also murdered by Rasmussen.

According to New Hampshire State Police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the unidentified child was between 2 and 4 years of age when she was killed, suggesting she was born between 1975 and 1977.

She had slightly wavy brown hair and was “primarily Caucasian with a small amount of Asian, Black, and American Indian ancestry. The child had a slight overbite that may have been noticeable.”


She may have been anemic during her short life and investigators believe she was probably from Texas, Arizona, California, or Oregon — all states where Rasmussen is known to have lived at some point.

The image released Friday is an update and upgrade of an image previously released, the center said.





John R. Ellement can be reached at john.ellement@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.