Vermont Singer's Murder Finally Solved by 1 Cigarette

For half a century, the brutal murder of Rita Curran stayed locked in time. A 24-year-old schoolteacher and singer, Curran returned home from barbershop quartet practice one July night in 1971 — and never made it to morning. Her roommates found her dead in her Burlington, Vermont, apartment, beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled. Police found no witnesses and no obvious suspect. But they did find a cigarette.

All Eyes on Bundy

With no leads, the mystery churned through decades of speculation. One theory gripped the town: Had a young Ted Bundy killed her? The timing and location seemed eerie. Curran worked part-time at the Colonial Motor Inn, just down the road from the hospital where Bundy was born. Bundy wouldn't be arrested until years later, which made the theory feel plausible.

Curran's sister, Mary, needed answers. She wrote to Bundy. The FBI later responded to her letter and said Bundy hadn't denied involvement, according to VTDigger. That cryptic detail only deepened the mystery — and the pain.

The Killer Upstairs

In 2023, investigators finally cracked the case, not with a confession, but with science. They had preserved the cigarette butt found next to Curran's body. In 2014, forensic analysts pulled a DNA profile from it, but it didn't match any entries in the criminal database. Years later, Burlington Police Lt. James Trieb decided to ditch the one-detective cold case model and assigned a full team to rework the crime as if it had happened yesterday.

They turned to genetic genealogy; the same method used in the Golden State Killer case. It worked. The DNA pointed straight to William DeRoos, a man who lived two floors above Curran at the time of the murder. DeRoos had a rap sheet and a temper — and on the night Curran died, he had stormed out after a fight with his wife.

Back in 1971, DeRoos and his wife both told police they had been together all night. But when detectives tracked his wife down again, she admitted she had lied. She said she felt young, scared, and pressured to protect him, according to PEOPLE.

The DNA That Spoke Louder Than Words

Police didn't stop with the cigarette. They also found DeRoos' DNA on Curran's ripped housecoat. When they located one of his living half-brothers, the man agreed to provide a sample. The match confirmed it: William DeRoos had left that cigarette behind — and left Curran dead.

By then, DeRoos had been dead for decades. He moved to Thailand after the murder, briefly became a Buddhist monk, and then returned to the United States, where he died of a drug overdose in a San Francisco hotel room in 1986.

"We are all confident that William DeRoos is responsible," Trieb said at the press conference, as reported by PEOPLE. "But because he died in a hotel room of a drug overdose, he will not be held accountable for his actions."

Justice Comes Late, but It Comes

Curran's family waited 52 years to learn the truth. They had feared the killer might be a monster like Bundy. In the end, he wasn't famous — just dangerously close. Right upstairs.

Burlington's acting police chief, Jon Murad, captured the moment simply by stating, "Ultimately, those emotions are ones of relief, of pride for me (and) for this department, but mostly of gratitude to a family that has been through an incredible ordeal for more than half a century," according to CNN.

Rita Curran deserved more time. Her family deserved quicker answers. But even after half a century, truth still showed up — wrapped in DNA, tucked inside a forgotten cigarette.

References: She Was Strangled in Her Bedroom with No Witnesses. Some Suspected Ted Bundy — But Real Killer Was Just Steps Away | Murder of Vermont woman solved after more than 50 years using DNA found on a cigarette and the victim's clothing