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William DeRoos: Rita Curran's murderer identified after 52 years using DNA found on cigarette butt

The case was solved using modern DNA and genealogy technology, along with the careful preservation of evidence from the 1971 crime scene

BURLINGTON, VERMONT: A 1971 murder has been solved after 52 years using decades-old DNA evidence from the crime scene. Rita Curran was murdered in cold blood in her Burlington apartment on July 19, 1971. The case remained a mystery for years before the Burlington Police Department announced in a press conference Tuesday, February 21, that the killer had been identified.

Authorities identified the man responsible for the 24-year-old's murder as William DeRoos, who reportedly died in 1986. The case was solved using modern DNA and genealogy technology, along with the careful preservation of evidence from the 1971 crime scene. Authorities said the most incriminating evidence was a cigarette butt found next to Curran's body containing DNA evidence.

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According to USA Today, former senator Patrick Leahy, who was a county prosecutor at the time of the homicide, said he had seen countless gruesome crimes during his tenure as a prosecutor, but Curran's family had remained in his thoughts. "They weren't going to bring Rita Curran back but they could at least bring closure," Leahy said in an interview after the news conference. "And after 50 years, they did."

Who was Rita Curran?

Rita Curran was a 24-year-old second-grade teacher who was brutally murdered in her Burlington apartment in July 1971. She had recently moved out of her parents' home to live in a house shared by three other roommates. The victim was spending the summer working as a maid at a local motel while also taking graduate courses at the University of Vermont. Tragically, she was murdered around midnight on July 19 and was found strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted. The gruesome crime sent shockwaves across the community at a time when many Burlington residents were used to leaving their front doors unlocked. The identity of the killer remained an unsolved mystery for decades despite investigators probing into hundreds of tips over the years.

How was Rita Curran's murder solved?

In 2019, the case was reactivated by the Burlington Police Department when Lt Detective-Commander Jim Trieb assigned his entire team of detectives to the case. His team concluded that forensic evidence would be instrumental in solving the case due to its age. Curran's case was reportedly the oldest cold case in the department considering it had been put on the back burner for years. However, several key pieces of evidence were preserved and in 2014 a number of items were sent to a forensic lab in New York City for DNA testing -- including a LARK cigarette butt found on the floor next to the victim's body. While the lab detected a male's DNA on the butt, it did not match the DNA of anyone in the national database of felons.

Last year, authorities sent more evidence -- including Curran's clothes -- to a lab in Florida, where modern DNA-extracting techniques were employed. Detectives also sent the genetic evidence from the cigarette butt to a genealogy company, hoping that a bigger database of DNA could lead them to the killer. Their prayers were answered when CeCe Moore, scientist and genealogy expert at Parabon Nanolabs, found a DNA match with William DeRoos within hours of researching both genealogical records and public records. Moore credited the databases of DNA that are now available to scientists and investigators due to genealogy testing. She also thanked the detectives who collected and preserved evidence at the time of the murder. "The DNA evidence ended up being so incredibly key," Moore said at the press conference via Zoom. "They couldn't have possibly imagined the power that we would have at this time to actually use that to narrow it down to one person." The DNA testing of Curran's housecoat at the lab in Florida also confirmed that DeRoos had indeed committed the crime.

Who was William DeRoos?

Rita Curran's killer William DeRoos had reportedly been a suspect for years and was even interrogated by the authorities at the time of the murder. DeRoos tied the knot with Michelle DeRoos in the summer of 1971 in Burlington, about two weeks before the homicide. The newly wedded couple lived in the same apartment building as Curran. The couple reportedly had a heated argument on the night of July 19, after which William went for a walk to get some fresh air. Speaking to Burlington police in the fall of 2022, Michelle DeRoos (who has since changed her name) said her then-husband had a criminal history and instructed her not to mention to police that he wasn't at home at the time of the murder else they would make him a suspect.

However, William DeRoos left his then-wife shortly after the murder and moved to Thailand, where he reportedly became a monk. The killer resurfaced in San Francisco in 1974, when he met his second wife Sarah Hepting. In an interview with Burlington police, Hepting said DeRoos once stabbed a woman in front of her and later said he thought he stabbed Hepting. She also accused DeRoos of strangling her on one occasion, the same way Curren died. That said, DeRoos was found dead from a drug overdose in a hotel room in 1986.