Bear Brook Murders: Solving the Allenstown Barrels

In the dense pine woodlands of Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, two industrial 55-gallon steel barrels were discovered fifteen years apart—one in 1985, the second in 2000. Inside lay the skeletonized remains of a young mother and three small girls. For decades, the "Bear Brook Murders" stood as one of the most baffling multiple homicides in American history—the case that ultimately gave birth to modern investigative genetic genealogy.

The Two Barrels & Kinship Findings

On November 10, 1985, a hunter discovered a rusted 55-gallon drum overturned near a burned store in Bear Brook State Park. Inside, wrapped in plastic sheeting, were the remains of an adult female (aged 23–33) and a female child (aged 8–10). Both had died of blunt force trauma to the skull.

Fifteen years later, on May 9, 2000, New Hampshire State Police cold-case detectives re-searching the same woodland found a second identical 55-gallon barrel just 100 yards from the first. Inside were two more female children: one aged 2 to 4, and the other aged 1 to 3, murdered in the same manner.

Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA testing revealed a startling biological truth: the adult female was the biological mother of the oldest child (found in barrel 1) and the youngest child (found in barrel 2). However, the middle child (aged 2 to 4) was biologically unrelated to the mother and her two sisters, pointing to a predatory killer who traveled with multiple abducted families.

Chronological Case Timeline