Investigators released composite sketches of four of the victims whose names are not known.
A man who died in a California prison in 2010 while serving a sentence for murdering and dismembering his wife is responsible for killing five people in New Hampshire in the 1980s -- including three children -- authorities said Thursday.
"We believe we have our killer," New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Strelzin announced at a press conference. "Now we need to identify and try to find all of his victims."
(DNA shows Evans is the father of the victim on the left, authorities said. The identity of the youngest girl, right, is unknown.)
New Hampshire State Police and the attorney general's office said they believe the killer was a man known as Bob Evans, the one-time boyfriend of a New Hampshire woman who disappeared in 1981.
They believe he killed that woman, Denise Beaudin, and, separately, a mother and three girls who were found in steel drums in a park. They said he was the father of one of those girls.
Authorities said they believe Bob Evans, right, killed Denise Beaudin, left.
Authorities said they followed a complicated DNA trail to link three victims to Evans, an electrician who they said beat his victims and dismembered some of them.
Authorities said Evans used a number of aliases. Under a different name, he was convicted in California of the 2002 killing of his wife, Eunsoon Jun, who was found dead in their basement.
"This was a guy who was a chameleon," Strelzin said.
He said Evans — not believed to be his real name — fits the criteria for a serial killer and that authorities want to know more about him, because they fear there are other victims.
Police recently searched a Manchester home where Beaudin lived with Evans and her infant daughter. Beaudin's family said they last saw her in 1981, when she was 23 years old. Her family assumed the three left town to avoid financial troubles, and they never called police.
The attorney general's office said it has been in touch with Beaudin's daughter.
The case of the four bodies found in drums in a state park in Allenstown has long stymied investigators.
In 1985, a hunter discovered the first two bodies — the woman and a girl believed to be 9 or 10. In 2000, an investigator found the other two girls — one believed to be 2 or 3 and the other 3 or 4. They believe the woman is likely the mother of the eldest and youngest girls.
The time of their killings was narrowed to between 1980 and 1984.
Investigators said they wish they could have learned the elusive killer's name before he died in a California prison -- and noted they are searching for more potential victims.
"He will never face true justice for what he did," Strelzin said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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