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Schoolteacher’s Murder Solved By DNA — And The Killer Became A Monk
Rita Curran was just 24 when her life was ended, and the murderer chose an unusual path to destruction afterwards.
Police in the state of Vermont have announced they have solved the decades-old murder of a young schoolteacher through the use of genetic genealogy.
They said they are confident Rita Curran was killed by a neighbour named William DeRoos, who died himself in the late 1980s.
A murder they would not forget
Rita was just starting to taste independence and go it alone in life in the summer of 1971. She had lived with her parents and her brother in Burlington, but had recently moved into a shared apartment with three roommates.
The 24-year-old was taking graduate courses at the University of Vermont while working as a second-grade teacher, as well as supplementing her income with a summer job housekeeping at a local motel.
However, all that was to be ripped away on July 19th 1971. At around midnight, someone entered Rita’s apartment and beat, sexually assaulted and strangled the young woman to death.
