A cigarette butt found near the body of a Vermont school teacher more than five decades ago helped lead investigators to an upstairs neighbor who they say killed her, according to police.
BURLINGTON, Vt. --
The suspect, identified as William DeRoos, who was 31 at the time, had left his apartment that night for “a cool down walk.” After he returned he told his wife of two weeks not to say that he had been out. After Curran's death DeRoos, who was known to some as a guru, moved to Thailand and became a monk, but he later returned to the United States. In 1986 DeRoos died of a drug overdose in San Francisco, police said.
In the early morning hours of July 20, 1971 Burlington police were called to the Brooks Avenue apartment after Curran's roommate arrived home to find her body in their shared bedroom.The case remained open and investigators never let it go, but in 2019, Trieb and a team of detectives, officers, technicians and others began working the case as though it had just happened.
Detectives then determined DeRoos and his wife Michelle had been living upstairs at the time of Curran's death. They had spoken with investigators after Curran's death, but at the time they said they had not seen or heard anything. Detective Thomas Chennette, who interviewed DeRoos's first ex-wife, said Tuesday he didn't believe she knew he had killed Curran, but was protecting him because he had a criminal record.
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