www.mychamplainvalley.com
They were married for only two weeks and yet she kept his secret for five decades? I'm glad she eventually came forward but had she spoken up after they divorced/separated (or even after he left the country and could not threaten/harm her), justice could have been served in Rita's case.Feb 21 2023 rbbm
''BURLINGTON, Vt. —
Burlington police identify suspect in Rita Curran murder case, 51 years after her death
Curran was 24 years old at the time of her death in July 1971. According to state police, Curran's body was found in her Brookes Avenue home by her roommate.www.mynbc5.com
Burlington Police identified the suspect in the 51-year-old cold case murder of Rita Curran.
Officials identified the suspect as William DeRoos. A cigarette butt left at the scene of the crime led police to DeRoos through third party ancestry DNA.
During a press conference Tuesday, police say DeRoos and his then wife, Michelle, lived in the apartment below Curran's at 15 Brooks Ave.
According to detectives, DeRoos left his apartment after getting into a fight with Michelle to go for a walk. During this time, police say DeRoos strangled and killed Curran.''
''Acting Police Chief Jon Murad said DeRoos, who was then 31, lived upstairs from Curran with his wife at the time of Curran’s murder. Married for only two weeks, DeRoos and his wife had a quarrel on the night of the murder and DeRoos “left for a cool-down walk,” Murad said.
Burlington police say neighbor killed Rita Curran, solving a more than 50-year-old cold case - VTDigger
At a Tuesday morning press conference, police said advances in DNA testing helped lead them to Curran’s killer, identified as William DeRoos. Curran was found dead in her Burlington apartment on July 20, 1971. The suspect died in California in 1986, according to police.vtdigger.org
Shortly after the killing, DeRoos’ wife gave police an alibi for her husband, according to Murad.
“Five decades later, she gave our detectives a different story: the truth,” Murad said.
DeRoos later traveled to Thailand, where he lived for several decades as a Buddhist monk before his death in San Francisco in 1986, at the age of 46, according to Murad.''
I understand why she may have initially given her husband a false alibi out of fear, but if he fled to Thailand shortly after the murder, why didn't the police take a second look at him? Did they not find it strange that one of Rita's neighbors abruptly packed up and moved halfway across the world after the murder?Shortly after Curran’s murder, William DeRoos left his wife and moved to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk. His then-wife ― who Murad said does not face charges for lying to police back in 1971 ― said that she barely saw him again, though authorities said he’s believed to have remained violent.
DeRoos eventually moved back to the U.S., and in 1974 he remarried a second woman in San Francisco, California, who told police that there were two instances where he was violent around her, authorities said.
During one instance, the couple was talking with a female friend when she said he took out a pocket knife and stabbed the woman in her abdomen “for no reason whatsoever.” He was arrested, and the woman was treated for her injuries. Deroos later told his wife that he thought it was her that he stabbed.
Police Solve Teacher's 1971 Cold Case Murder Using Discarded Cigarette Butt
Rita Curran, 24, was strangled by her newlywed neighbor while home alone. Her killer later moved to Thailand and became a monk, Vermont police said.www.huffpost.com
On page 16 it says that police received a tip from an "informer" shortly after the murder who told them that William DeRoos was capable of committing violence. It seems like a pretty big oversight for LE to not have taken a deeper look at the upstairs neighbor who is said to be capable of violence who fled to Thailand shortly after the murders. MOO.
