Chilling video surfaces of man suspected in N.H. murders

Watch: Larry Vanner interview

A child welfare group and police officials on Tuesday released chilling video excerpts from a 15-year-old interview between a California detective and a man who investigators believe killed two women and three children decades ago in New Hampshire.

The video showed the man, at the time calling himself Larry Vanner, as he spoke with a detective about a separate case involving his wife, Eunsoon Jun, whose dismembered body was discovered in 2002 in the basement of the couple’s Richmond, Calif. home.

Vanner, who went by Bob Evans at the time of the earlier New Hampshire slayings, eventually pleaded guilty to Jun’s murder and died in a California prison in 2010.

But during the police interview released Tuesday, he was not quite ready to come clean.

“What I was doing was making arrangements to get my ducks lined up,’’ he said in explaining his delay in returning the detective’s calls.

Slumped in a chair and speaking in a deep voice, he also said “you’re not my priest, and you’re not my doctor. … Gossip has its place in society sometimes, but I’m just not going to say anything more about Eunsoon or myself right now. … Sometimes it’s hard to find out what the truth is.’’

At one point during the interview, the detective and another investigator said Vanner’s prints — and many aliases — had come back.

“Curtis or Gerald or Gerry or whatever name you’re going by this week,’’ the second official said.

“Curtis Kimball,’’ the first detective said. “Ring a bell?’’

The man now linked to at least six brutal murders played dumb, saying simply, “no.’’

The detective later suggested Jun had harmed herself and that her husband could be concealing that.

“No,’’ the alleged serial killer said. “If you’re thinking that she’s suicidal, no she’s not. But she’s not as aggressive as she used to be. … What else can I say? I don’t chase younger women. It’s just something that happened. What can I say?’’

Investigators and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released the video in the hope that someone may recognize the killer’s mannerisms and shed light on a separate case that has haunted the Granite State for decades.

In 1985, hunters stumbled upon a barrel in Allenstown, N.H., containing the decomposing bodies of a woman, believed to be in her mid-20s, and a girl, probably 9 to 11. Fifteen years later, a State Police sergeant newly assigned to the case discovered the second barrel, which contained the skeletal remains of two more girls, one believed to be 3 or 4, and the other 2 or 3.

New Hampshire authorities announced in January that evidence including forensic testing showed that the killer of Jun had earlier murdered the four people whose remains were found in Allenstown. One of the dead girls was his daughter.

He also probably killed 23-year-old Denise Beaudin, his girlfriend who disappeared in 1981 with her baby daughter, officials said.

Beaudin was never found, but her baby survived, cared for by her captor for five years before being abandoned.

She was later adopted by a California couple, and went on to lead what appears to be a remarkably normal life, marrying, and having children of her own. But she remained curious about her past — and it was that curiosity that triggered a complex series of events that led to the January announcement.

In 2014, she submitted her DNA in an effort to find her biological parents, a quest that led to the discovery that Beaudin was her mother.

California investigators alerted New Hampshire authorities to the connection, and Evans was later identified as the man who had abandoned Beaudin’s daughter under another name. In October, DNA evidence showed that Evans was the biological father of the unidentified 2- to 4-year-old whose body was found in Allenstown in 2000.

Beaudin has never been found, and the four Allenstown, N.H. victims have not been identified.