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Will Cigarette Solve Murder of Beloved Young Teacher? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful twenty
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Speaker 1: four year old young second grade teacher end up crumpled,
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Speaker 1: partially nude at a doorstep just before her death? How
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Speaker 1: does that happen? And what does a cigarette but have
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Speaker 1: to do with this story? I'm Nancy Grace, this is
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at
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Speaker 1: Fox Nation and series XM one eleven. First of all,
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Speaker 1: take a listen to our friend Dave mac at crime
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Speaker 1: online dot com.
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Speaker 2: Beverly opened the bedroom door, saw that the room was
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Speaker 2: in a state of disarray, and just behind the door
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Speaker 2: was the body of Ritocurring, partially nude and crumpled on
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Speaker 2: the floor. She'd obviously been in the fight of her
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Speaker 2: life and didn't win. Rita's curlers were still in her hair,
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Speaker 2: but she had been beaten in the head and faith
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Speaker 2: Rita was dead. She had fought her attacker heart and
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Speaker 2: it was later determined that she had been sexually assaulted.
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Speaker 2: The medical examiner would find the cause of death to
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Speaker 2: be manual strangulation.
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Speaker 1: Let's just take what we just heard from our friends
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Speaker 1: at crime online. Partially nude, the curlers still in her hair,
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Speaker 1: crumpled at a bedroom door, the room in complete disarray,
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Speaker 1: having been in the fight of her life, a fight
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Speaker 1: that she lost. Right there off the top, let me
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Speaker 1: go to Paul Zike, Foreigner police commander and Albuquerque author
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Speaker 1: of stop him from Killing Them. Paul Zike, right there,
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Speaker 1: I know that she was attacked in her bedroom, in
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Speaker 1: her home. She was either partially unclothed, stripped by her killer,
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Speaker 1: or she was caught changing clothes or getting in or
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Speaker 1: out of the shower or baptob No, no, she still
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Speaker 1: has curlers in her hair. She must have been getting
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Speaker 1: in or out as bed. So already I'm learning a lot.
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Speaker 3: Most attacks that occur in your home are very much
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Speaker 3: as surprise. Whether somebody crossed their window, they pry a
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Speaker 3: door open, or they slip in through the garage.
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Speaker 4: It's an attack that's sudden, it's vicious, it's meant to overwhelm,
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Speaker 4: and very few people, male or female, are really prepared
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Speaker 4: to defend themselves against something that they did not know
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Speaker 4: was going to occur, especially with such viciousness.
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Speaker 1: I want to go to Karen Stark joining me, high
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Speaker 1: profile psychologist joining us out of New York. You can
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Speaker 1: find her at Karenstark dot com Karen with a c Karen,
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Speaker 1: I was thinking about her and still having her curl
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Speaker 1: in her hair. That tells me that she was either
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Speaker 1: just going to sleep, just waking up, or in the
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Speaker 1: midst of getting ready to go out. And all those times,
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Speaker 1: especially when you're getting ready for bed or just waking up,
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Speaker 1: that's the last time you expect an intruder. Why is that?
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Speaker 1: Do we lull ourselves into some sense of complacency?
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Speaker 5: I think it's tired for anyone to imagine that's something
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Speaker 5: that like that would happen to you. So it's a
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Speaker 5: time when you're thinking about sleeping or just waking up
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Speaker 5: and you're not you're a menis in person?
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Speaker 1: Well, Karen, start either you're tired at the end of
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Speaker 1: the day and getting ready for bed, or you've just
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Speaker 1: woken up and you're half asleep, half awake. Both times
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Speaker 1: you're vulnerable.
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Speaker 3: Very vulnerable.
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Speaker 1: You know. That reminds me of something Paul's I write
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Speaker 1: in my book Don't Be a Victim. People often say, well,
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Speaker 1: I was at home, I didn't have the alarm on.
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Speaker 1: That's the whole reason. You need the alarm on. Absolutely,
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Speaker 1: when we're at home and I've got my children there.
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Speaker 1: I've got my ninety one year old mother at home.
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Speaker 1: That's when I want the home protected more than any
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Speaker 1: other time. Hey, come on my TV. I'd be mad
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Speaker 1: if you did not take it. Immediately, take it and go.
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Speaker 1: But what needs to protecting most is your family.
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Speaker 3: And when somebody breaks in a home at night, it's
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Speaker 3: much different than a day like breaking and during the day,
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Speaker 3: they don't want you to be home. They want to
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Speaker 3: take your items, you're valuables, and then they leave. At
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Speaker 3: night they know you're home, they know you're in the house.
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Speaker 3: The type of predator who breaks in knowing that people
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Speaker 3: are in the house sleeping or in the house getting
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Speaker 3: ready or getting in the house getting ready to go
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Speaker 3: to bed, they are the ones that are capable or
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Speaker 3: most capable of taking things to a much tragic ending.
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Speaker 1: Riada just twenty four years old at the time she's murdered.
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Speaker 1: Much loved grade teacher. You know, I can still remember
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Speaker 1: my second grade teacher, Miss Clarabel Bryant, and I loved
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Speaker 1: her so much. She encouraged me to write poetry, Jackie,
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Speaker 1: my first poem second grade Round the Meadow under Miss
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Speaker 1: Clara Beel Bryant. Can anybody in the studio or on
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Speaker 1: the panel. Not remember your second grade teacher, Leo Wolf,
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Speaker 1: Cleo Wolf, I mean you remember your said it's Frits.
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Speaker 1: So this is somebody's beloved second grade teacher. What more
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Speaker 1: do we know from crime online?
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Speaker 2: Police found no signs of forced entry, but that was
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Speaker 2: not uncommon for the area. Residents didn't lock their doors.
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Speaker 2: In Burlington, Vermont in nineteen seventy one, investigators found blood
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Speaker 2: smeared on the inside of the back door just off
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Speaker 2: the kitchen, probably the route the attacker took to leave
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Speaker 2: the ground floor apartment. In the initial stage of the investigation,
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Speaker 2: several women notified police of anonymous late night phone calls
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Speaker 2: and Peeping Tom incidents. It was later learned that during
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Speaker 2: the investigation, Rita was one of the women to receive
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Speaker 2: these phone calls in the nights before her murder.
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Speaker 1: Peeping Tom's hang up phone calls, I mean Matthew Mangino
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Speaker 1: with me, well known attorney, former prosecutor in Lawrence County
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Speaker 1: and author of the Executioners Told the Crimes, Ares, Trials, Appeals,
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Speaker 1: Last Meals, and Final Words a forty six person executions
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Speaker 1: of forty six persons in the US. Wow great book Matthew. Matthew,
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Speaker 1: thank you. Do you remember when you were prosecuting felonies
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Speaker 1: how often you would look in a homicide file or
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Speaker 1: a rape file or an agassault file and way back
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Speaker 1: in the back of the rap sheet would be peeping Tom.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: Well, that's certainly a concern that certainly fits a profile
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Speaker 6: of some and who is ultimately maybe a sex offender.
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Speaker 6: And in this situation, I'm looking at peeping Tom, I'm
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Speaker 6: looking at phone calls. This is someone who has some connection.
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Speaker 7: To this person.
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Speaker 6: Maybe it's not a personal connection, maybe it's a geographical connection.
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Speaker 6: They live in the same building, they live in the
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Speaker 6: same neighborhood, so they have the ability to look in
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Speaker 6: the window, they have the ability to make these phone calls.
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Speaker 6: So you know, the first thing I'm going to do,
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Speaker 6: if I know there's a history of this is I'm
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Speaker 6: going to start canvassing that neighborhood. I'm going to start
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Speaker 6: asking questions from the neighbors and other people who live
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Speaker 6: nearby what they saw and what they what they know
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Speaker 6: about these prior incidents, and have they ever seen anybody
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Speaker 6: that looks suspicious in the neighborhood or who you know,
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Speaker 6: looked as though they were involved in this kind of
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Speaker 6: nefarious conduct.
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Speaker 1: You know, you're right. I very often argue to Jurrurs
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Speaker 1: that it's human nature to covet on what we see.
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Speaker 1: And when you're talking about the attack and murdyer of
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Speaker 1: a gorgeous young teacher like Rita, who was the paping
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Speaker 1: tom who was calling and hanging up, who had the
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Speaker 1: opportunity to be in that neighborhood, at that apartment complex repeatedly,
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Speaker 1: So I agree with you, Matthew Mangina. What more do
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Speaker 1: we know from crime online? Listen?
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Speaker 2: Rita Curran was a twenty four year old woman on
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Speaker 2: summer vacation from her full time job as a beloved
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Speaker 2: second grade school teacher at Milton Elementary School. But rather
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Speaker 2: than the lounge around all summer, Rita decided to move
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Speaker 2: out of her parents home for the very first time
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Speaker 2: and move into an apartment with roommates she didn't know
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Speaker 2: that well, Beverly and Carrie. She also took a job
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Speaker 2: as a maid at the Colonial Motor in and joined
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Speaker 2: a barbershop quartet. She also began taking graduate courses at
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Speaker 2: the University of Vermont.
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Speaker 1: Time stories with Nancy Grace joining me Right now is
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Speaker 1: a very special guest. It's Rita's sister, Mary Campbell. Mary,
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Speaker 1: thank you for.
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Speaker 8: Being with us, Thank you for having me.
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Speaker 1: Do you remember when your sister made the decision to
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Speaker 1: move out?
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Speaker 8: So when I moved back home after my graduation, it
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Speaker 8: was decided she was going to move out during that
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Speaker 8: month of June, and she was gone by her birthday
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Speaker 8: June twenty first. I remember going to the apartment and
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Speaker 8: delivering a birthday gift, so she probably had made the
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Speaker 8: decision before I came back home. I just I knew
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Speaker 8: when I went back home that she was going to
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Speaker 8: be trying to live in an apartment.
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Speaker 1: Tell me about the apartment your sister picked out, and
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Speaker 1: how did did she end up with two women she
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Speaker 1: didn't know?
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Speaker 8: It was very common in the Burlington area that if
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Speaker 8: you had an apartment and then you were in school,
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Speaker 8: you wanted to go back to your home state that
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Speaker 8: you sublet in order to hold the apartment so that
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Speaker 8: you have it when you came back in September. It
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Speaker 8: was very common for a roommate, because I had done
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Speaker 8: it myself, for people that were renting to say, Okay,
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Speaker 8: this room is going to be available for the summer,
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Speaker 8: or this room is available for so many months while
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Speaker 8: the other person is gone or they moved out, and
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Speaker 8: we just need this room occupied. And so financially it
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Speaker 8: made sense to do that because it was easier than
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Speaker 8: trying to find an apartment on your own. So there
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Speaker 8: were often ads in the paper that looking for a
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Speaker 8: roommate who would share the expenses of the apartment. At
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Speaker 8: that time, I think it was between my mother and
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Speaker 8: father and Rita, and they just decided this was a
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Speaker 8: good way to try it. You could stay there until September.
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Speaker 8: Then if you want to get your own apartment or
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Speaker 8: have a different apartment with your own friends, but you
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Speaker 8: could try living away from home. She had not lived
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Speaker 8: away from home all through college, so this was sort
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Speaker 8: of a place that had a minimal commitment.
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Speaker 1: You know, that's really interesting, Paul Zike, Foreign Police Commander,
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Speaker 1: Albuquerque author. I'll stop him from killing them. Paul. I
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Speaker 1: did the same thing. I advertised for a roommate and
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Speaker 1: got one and didn't think anything about it. But when
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Speaker 1: I look back on what I did, I realize how
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Speaker 1: wrong in fact that may be. But it's very very common, Paul.
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Speaker 3: It is, and unfortunately most females that are murdered in
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Speaker 3: my thirty years of experience, they know or have some
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Speaker 3: direct association with their attackers. And the fact that you
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Speaker 3: have people coming in and out, you know, maybe looking
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Speaker 3: at your apartment, people that you're talking to about renting
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Speaker 3: a room or cohabitating with you, it tears down a
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Speaker 3: wall between you and them, something that normally would not
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Speaker 3: be crossed, and for the wrong sort of men with
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Speaker 3: the wrong mentality, once that's pulled down, they simply refuse
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Speaker 3: to let go and can become obsessed, stalk and begin
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Speaker 3: to stalk and unfortunately a lot of that leads to
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Speaker 3: sexual assault and other crimes. But it's something that women
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Speaker 3: across America are faced with, especially in today's environment with
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Speaker 3: these dating apps.
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Speaker 1: It's very scary. And in this case, the two roommates
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Speaker 1: were in fact women, So in her mind, what does
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Speaker 1: she have to fear? Now? Take a listen to our
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Speaker 1: friends at crime Online.
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Speaker 2: Rita Curran was out of rehearsal for her barbershop quartet
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Speaker 2: until just after ten pm. When she got home. Her
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Speaker 2: roommates Beverly and Carrie were getting ready to grab a
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Speaker 2: late dinner with another friend and they invited Rita to
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Speaker 2: join them. Read it declined and the trio left around
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Speaker 2: eleven to twenty and Rita prepared to go to bed.
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Speaker 2: Rita's roommates returned home around twelve thirty am was one
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Speaker 2: of their boyfriends, Paul Robinson, and sat up talking until
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Speaker 2: about one thirty am. Beverly Lampierre was about to call
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Speaker 2: it a night and opened the door to the room
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Speaker 2: she shared with Rita and opened the door to a nightmare.
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Speaker 1: Joining me right now is Dave mac investigator, reporter for
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Speaker 1: crimeonline dot com. So we know that they were up
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Speaker 1: that night till one point thirty and it was Rita.
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Speaker 1: The two roommates had come home from the late night
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Speaker 1: dinner and along with them came one of their boyfriends. Correct,
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Speaker 1: that's what we understand. Yes, so I assume that he
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Speaker 1: would probably be the very first suspect.
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Speaker 2: The way that it all played out. He wasn't home,
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Speaker 2: He was not in the apartment when this took place.
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Speaker 2: You have to remember that the Paul Robinson, the boyfriend,
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Speaker 2: and the two of the roommates, they were all out
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Speaker 2: together and they came home together. So he wasn't at
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Speaker 2: the apartment alone with Rita.
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Speaker 1: Did he stay over?
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Speaker 2: According to a couple of reports, yes, that he was
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Speaker 2: in a dating relationship with one of the girls, and
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Speaker 2: he and his girlfriend had gone off to a bedroom
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Speaker 2: when they heard Beverly screaming.
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Speaker 1: I would still put him on a list of suspects
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Speaker 1: if he's in the house, and I would extensively question
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Speaker 1: the female roommate to make sure she really could alibi him,
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Speaker 1: that he really was in the room with her. Whenever
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Speaker 1: you introduce a male in the scenario, immediately they become
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Speaker 1: a suspect. Paul Zike agree or disagree, absolutely, one hundred percent.
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Speaker 3: And I have found that unequivocally to be a point
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Speaker 3: of interest. You look when you find a dead female,
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Speaker 3: You look at who she was last seen with, who
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Speaker 3: was male, who as she has a restraining order against,
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Speaker 3: who she was in a domestic relationship, or who was
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Speaker 3: a friend of a friend who happened to be around.
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Speaker 3: Men see something they want, and sometimes the wrong type
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Speaker 3: of men then act. But you're right, men are the
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Speaker 3: nexus in these cases at.
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Speaker 1: This point, Matthew Mangino, What should cops be doing.
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Speaker 6: Well, Number one, they should be looking very closely at
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Speaker 6: the apartment. They should be that the crime scene should
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Speaker 6: be analyzed for every possibility we're looking for fingerprints, and
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Speaker 6: we're looking for blood, and we're looking for other fibers
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Speaker 6: and things that might be left at the crime scene.
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Speaker 6: And all that evidence has to be preserved, and the
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Speaker 6: area has to be There has to be some method
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Speaker 6: of canvassing the neighborhoods. There has to be some method
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Speaker 6: of reaching out to people who might have sold something.
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Speaker 6: We have a very specific period of time. So at
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Speaker 6: eleven thirty, they leave, they come back at twelve thirty.
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Speaker 1: Now, hold on just a moment, Dave Matt. After the
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Speaker 1: roommates got home, didn't they all stay up and talk.
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Speaker 1: She was still alive at that point. Correct, Well, we
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Speaker 1: don't know.
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Speaker 2: See, Rita was in her bedroom.
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Speaker 1: Ah, got it. But they heard the scream later?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, backing up on the timetable here. They
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Speaker 2: got home together at twelve thirty, and they noticed that
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Speaker 2: Rita's bedroom door was not pulled shut all the way.
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Speaker 2: There was a little bit open. But they began they
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Speaker 2: didn't worry about it. They were talking. Okay, So Rita
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Speaker 2: was not in the room with them talking. She was
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Speaker 2: in her own bedroom, they assumed asleep.
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Speaker 1: I would use the scream as the beginning of the
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Speaker 1: timeline because then they all go to bed, and once
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Speaker 1: in their bedrooms they hear the screen.
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Speaker 2: No, they hear the scream when Beverly goes to bed.
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Speaker 2: Around one thirty in the morning, Beverly and Paul and
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Speaker 2: the other girlfriend, they were all in the living room together.
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Speaker 2: Paul and the girlfriend go off to their bedroom. Beverly
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Speaker 2: goes to her and this is one thirty in the morning.
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Speaker 2: Now they've been home for about an hour. When Beverly
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Speaker 2: then tries to open the door, she sees Rita and screams.
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Speaker 1: Ah okay, I see what she made. I see exactly
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Speaker 1: what you made.
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Speaker 2: I think she said there's something wrong with Rita.
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Speaker 1: Got it? Got it? So one point thirty the scream
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Speaker 1: is the roommate, not Rita. Got it. So the man
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Speaker 1: Gino's correct. It's the timeline between them leaving and them
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Speaker 1: coming back. So there's about a one hour or so,
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Speaker 1: give or take a few minutes timeline window that the
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Speaker 1: murder occurred. What more do we know?
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Speaker 2: Listen, Well, Rita Kurran lived in an apartment with the roommates.
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Speaker 2: Directly above their apartment was a newly married couple, Michelle
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Speaker 2: and William de Ruz. The couple had only been married
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Speaker 2: about two weeks, and police questioned both of them about
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Speaker 2: the activities surrounding the apartments that night. The couple told
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Speaker 2: police they'd been home all night, they didn't hear anything,
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Speaker 2: they didn't see anything. William Deruz was cleared. Three times.
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Speaker 2: Michelle and William de Ruce were questioned about the night
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Speaker 2: of the murder, and all three times they gave the
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Speaker 2: same answer. They were home all night, they didn't hear anything,
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Speaker 2: they didn't see anything. Satisfied inst gators cleared William Deruz,
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Speaker 2: as well as several other persons of interest, and the
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Speaker 2: case went cold.
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Speaker 1: Well, they're doing everything right. Once you clearly alibi the
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Speaker 1: male friend in the apartment, no it's not him, then
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Speaker 1: you immediately go door to door and you extend out
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Speaker 1: and out and out until it's no longer feasible. And
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Speaker 1: of course they start with the upstairs neighbors. Mary Campbell
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Speaker 1: is with us. This is Rita's sister. Mary. Do you
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Speaker 1: recall when you discovered that Rita had been killed?
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Speaker 6: Oh?
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Speaker 8: Yes, I might not be able to recall what we
18:39
Speaker 8: talked about a month before, but I have very vivid
18:43
Speaker 8: recollections of the day that the detectives in the Vermont
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Speaker 8: State Police because we were in Milton, a different town
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Speaker 8: than Burlington. So the Vermont State Police and the detectives
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Speaker 8: came to my mother's back door and told my mother
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Speaker 8: and my grandfather, and then my grandfather just ran to
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Speaker 8: the hallway and hollered to my brother and I Tommy Dookie,
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Speaker 8: which is my nickname, du get Up has been killed,
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Speaker 8: has been killed. And he was frantic. And then I
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Speaker 8: went down to the kitchen and it was my mother
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Speaker 8: and father had a big farmhouse, and the police were there.
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Speaker 8: My mother was by then finding your way to sit down,
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Speaker 8: but she just was bent over and sitting rocking in
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Speaker 8: a straight backed chair holding your head.
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Speaker 1: At that time, did you have any idea your sister
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Speaker 1: had been murdered?
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Speaker 8: Well, yes, we knew that my grandfather had been had
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Speaker 8: said that she was killed, but then by the time
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Speaker 8: we got to the kitchen of the Burbridge change to
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Speaker 8: being murdered.
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Speaker 1: So you kneed very quickly that there was no car
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Speaker 1: crash or accident.
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Speaker 8: No, yes, that's that's what you learn.
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Speaker 7: Very quickly.
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Speaker 8: You think, oh, car crash, you know, accident. She was
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Speaker 8: out out at night driving. That's the first thing you
20:02
Speaker 8: think of hit a deer or whatever, which is very
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Speaker 8: common around here. But then it was quickly it was
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Speaker 8: the murdered, and then it all just sort of hit us,
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Speaker 8: and it was my brother and I and my mother
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Speaker 8: and then my grandfather. My father's sister was out in
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Speaker 8: the cabins and he ran after her and she came
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Speaker 8: in and we were just all there, and my dad
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Speaker 8: was at IBM and he'd already gone to work. They
20:29
Speaker 8: told him that his father had had a heart attack
20:32
Speaker 8: and he needed to get home. So when my father
20:35
Speaker 8: drove in the driveway, he was greeted by his father,
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Speaker 8: so of course he knew something was wrong because they
20:42
Speaker 8: had told him his father had had a heart attack,
20:45
Speaker 8: and then my grandfather told him in the car as
20:48
Speaker 8: he drove in, and my grandfather was sort of the messenger,
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Speaker 8: going around to the different places on our property telling
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Speaker 8: the people that were there, and then it was just
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Speaker 8: very real againing.
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Speaker 1: Did anyone have any idea who could have murdered your sister?
21:04
Speaker 8: Absolutely not. Of course, she had had some different boyfriends
21:09
Speaker 8: over time, and of course they talked to them and
21:12
Speaker 8: did all their testing that they needed to do. They
21:15
Speaker 8: interviewed my father and you know, all of us if
21:18
Speaker 8: we had people that we knew that would do this.
21:22
Speaker 8: And I remember my mother saying at the time, and
21:26
Speaker 8: she said that for many years later, I hope to
21:29
Speaker 8: God that it was never anyone we knew, because we
21:32
Speaker 8: couldn't believe we would know a person who would do that.
21:35
Speaker 1: When you said they talked to your father, they questioned
21:38
Speaker 1: him as a potential suspect.
21:40
Speaker 8: I think they questioned all of us. They questioned, you know,
21:44
Speaker 8: where we were, but we were pretty straightfor everybody was home.
21:47
Speaker 8: You know, it was my brother was home, I was home,
21:50
Speaker 8: and we were just all there.
21:54
Speaker 1: But you know what, that is SOP standard operating procedure.
21:58
Speaker 1: I will never forget when my now friend Phil, the
22:04
Speaker 1: Toronto former firefighter in Long Island, was pulled out of
22:08
Speaker 1: his daughter Karina Vitronto's funeral to give a DNA sample.
22:15
Speaker 1: His daughter is commonly referred to as the Long Island jogger.
22:19
Speaker 1: Karina was found brutally murdered, our teeth knocked out along
22:26
Speaker 1: a job she had intended to take with her father
22:28
Speaker 1: and he didn't go that day, and in her funeral
22:31
Speaker 1: they actually pulled him out to test his DNA. Of course,
22:35
Speaker 1: it did not connect to the killer. But I believe
22:40
Speaker 1: his name is Chanelle Lewis. But yes, that is normal.
22:45
Speaker 1: Isn't that true? Let me ask you this, Matthew Mangino.
22:49
Speaker 1: Isn't it true that especially male family members are questioned
22:53
Speaker 1: and even give their fingerprints a DNA.
22:55
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's not uncommon. You know, certainly you're going to
22:59
Speaker 6: look at people who had some sort of relationship with her,
23:04
Speaker 6: whether her former boyfriend, uh, you know, acquaintances that she
23:09
Speaker 6: had the you know, people that she worked with in
23:12
Speaker 6: the school district. You know, typically when when a a
23:16
Speaker 6: wife is murdered, the husband is going to be the
23:20
Speaker 6: first initial suspect. Uh, And that always is the case
23:25
Speaker 6: when your daughter is murdered. Yeah, I think you're going
23:27
Speaker 6: to look to the father. You're going to want to
23:30
Speaker 6: know a little bit about their relationship in the background
23:33
Speaker 6: of the family. But it's uh, you know, it's tragic
23:38
Speaker 6: to pull somebody out of the funeral as the example
23:40
Speaker 6: that you gave to give a DNA sample, Uh, when
23:43
Speaker 6: your when your daughter has been murdered.
23:45
Speaker 1: I think and also factored in that Phil was supposed
23:48
Speaker 1: to go with her on the jog and he didn't go,
23:50
Speaker 1: and he found the body Nancy.
23:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's the doctor Jensen.
23:54
Speaker 1: Yes, guys, you're hearing the voice of doctor Jeffrey Jensen,
23:57
Speaker 1: Professor Fransik Pathology, director of Auto and Forensic Services, University
24:02
Speaker 1: Michigan Med School, and was medical examiner in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
24:08
Speaker 1: Go ahead, doctor Jensen.
24:09
Speaker 7: Investigators, we're basically left with blood typing, primitive blood typing,
24:16
Speaker 7: maybe some kind of trace evidence comparison, like hair or nails,
24:23
Speaker 7: possibly even broken fingernails. In an attack like this, you
24:28
Speaker 7: would expect to have possibly of evidence from the victim
24:32
Speaker 7: to the assailant. There may actually be injuries on the
24:36
Speaker 7: assailant that can be matched or sin in blood underneath
24:43
Speaker 7: the nail of the victim.
24:46
Speaker 1: So, doctor Jeffrey Jensen, you have in fact done rape kids.
24:50
Speaker 1: You have taken the nails and study them from murder victims,
24:57
Speaker 1: and explain to me why you would look under the
24:59
Speaker 1: namel of the murder victim.
25:01
Speaker 7: Well, a victim would, in an attempt to award off
25:05
Speaker 7: the attacker, possibly scratch the individual, and that would deposit
25:12
Speaker 7: the assailant's skin and blood underneath and nails. And I
25:18
Speaker 7: can't tell you how many cases have been actually solved
25:21
Speaker 7: by the recovery of that very valuable evidence on an
25:28
Speaker 7: attack like this.
25:29
Speaker 1: And of course with a victim like Rita, you then
25:32
Speaker 1: have to do a rape kit on a dead body.
25:37
Speaker 1: And what does that entail, Doctor.
25:39
Speaker 7: Well, it entailed taking samples from the victim, you know,
25:47
Speaker 7: hair samples Colm means swabs, and actually looking for some
25:55
Speaker 7: type of semen deposit or other evidence that would indicate
26:02
Speaker 7: the actual identity of the killer.
26:05
Speaker 1: Rather, you know, I think that you are airbrushing the truth.
26:09
Speaker 1: You have to take the dead victim's body. Not only
26:13
Speaker 1: WI look under the nails, but then you have to
26:15
Speaker 1: do a pelvic exam of the dead victim. You have
26:18
Speaker 1: to do a full on vaginal and anal search to
26:22
Speaker 1: find if there's semen or any other DNA. You have
26:26
Speaker 1: to comb the pubic hair. You have to look at
26:28
Speaker 1: the entire skin area around the pubic area for any
26:33
Speaker 1: epithilial or skin DNA that may have been left there.
26:37
Speaker 1: It's you have to check the mouth cavity. You have
26:41
Speaker 1: to check the entire body for potential touch DNA. A
26:45
Speaker 1: lot goes into it. It takes a long time. Now
26:49
Speaker 1: I want to circle back to Mary Campbell. This is
26:52
Speaker 1: Rita's sister joining us today. Now, let me understand, the
26:55
Speaker 1: Druz did not live directly above your sister, did they.
26:59
Speaker 8: Oh, that's correct. It was a three story house, three apartments,
27:04
Speaker 8: and they were on the third floor.
27:06
Speaker 1: So this was a house, not an apartment complex.
27:08
Speaker 8: It was an old. Yes, it was an old in
27:11
Speaker 8: town burling to Vermont in town with a sidewalk in.
27:15
Speaker 8: And it was a three story house that at one
27:17
Speaker 8: time was one large home but had been divided into
27:20
Speaker 8: three apartments. And the Druze people were on the third
27:24
Speaker 8: floor and the people in the middle floor were not home.
27:28
Speaker 1: Speaking of the Druze, take a listen to our cut
27:31
Speaker 1: seven from Jay Mac.
27:33
Speaker 2: William Deruze got married a second time, but according to
27:36
Speaker 2: his second wife, he was not a nice man and
27:38
Speaker 2: had an evil temper. William Deruz's first wife, Michelle, could
27:41
Speaker 2: have told the truth about the alibi she provided for him,
27:44
Speaker 2: but she didn't. Not until much later. The former Michelle
27:47
Speaker 2: Deruze told police that her husband of two weeks left
27:51
Speaker 2: their apartment the night Rida Kurrn was murdered, and that
27:54
Speaker 2: he was mad when he left.
27:55
Speaker 1: Okay, wait just a minute, Dave Mac joining us right now,
28:00
Speaker 1: are you telling me that then? Missus Druze lied he
28:06
Speaker 1: wasn't there. In fact, he had stormed off after an
28:09
Speaker 1: argument with her.
28:10
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am, that is absolutely correct.
28:12
Speaker 1: Well, that's not all. Take a listen to this.
28:15
Speaker 2: The alibi provided by William Druz's wife, Michelle was a lie.
28:19
Speaker 2: On the night of July twentieth, nineteen seventy one, William
28:22
Speaker 2: and Michelle Deruze had a big fight. The fight was
28:25
Speaker 2: big enough that William decided he needed to leave the
28:27
Speaker 2: apartment and go on a cool down walk. By the
28:29
Speaker 2: time he got home, Michelle was already asleep. As police
28:33
Speaker 2: investigated the murder of Rita current, Michelle provided the airtight
28:37
Speaker 2: alibi for her husband, claiming they were both home all
28:40
Speaker 2: night and didn't leave the apartment. Shortly after the murder,
28:43
Speaker 2: William Druze fled to Thailand, where he became a Buddhist monk.
28:48
Speaker 2: Three years later, in nineteen seventy four, William Druz returned
28:51
Speaker 2: to the States and settled in San Francisco. He and
28:54
Speaker 2: Michelle were divorced, and Deru's used some of his training
28:56
Speaker 2: in Thailand to become a fairly well known guru the
29:00
Speaker 2: Bay Area.
29:01
Speaker 1: Okay, right, stop right there, Dave mac so after their
29:07
Speaker 1: divorce when the then wife announces he's not a nice
29:12
Speaker 1: man and ps, I lied about his alibi. You do know,
29:17
Speaker 1: Dave mack that when you lie to a cop, and
29:19
Speaker 1: it's on a police report, at the bottom of that
29:21
Speaker 1: report it says I hear, but I swear that is
29:26
Speaker 1: all to all of e sens and purposes, that's perjury. Really,
29:30
Speaker 1: when you lie to a cop, it's dummy down and
29:32
Speaker 1: diluted by calling it a false report to a cop.
29:36
Speaker 1: But now she comes out with it. Now she tells
29:41
Speaker 1: me that they had a big fight and he stopped
29:43
Speaker 1: off at the time of the murder, and then he
29:46
Speaker 1: goes to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk.
29:50
Speaker 2: Are you sure, Nancy, believe it or not? And this
29:54
Speaker 2: is one of those stories that you look at and
29:56
Speaker 2: you keep going back saying this couldn't have happened. But yeah,
30:00
Speaker 2: they'd only been married two weeks Michelle and William when
30:04
Speaker 2: this took place, and she lied, just straight up said
30:08
Speaker 2: he is, we were here all night.
30:09
Speaker 7: He didn't leave. We didn't leave.
30:11
Speaker 2: You know, they stayed that course the entire time. And
30:14
Speaker 2: she kept that to herself. As you said, she lied
30:16
Speaker 2: I hope they will charge her with a crime.
30:18
Speaker 9: Well, she had to be lying because she's a free
30:20
Speaker 9: to him. He was in Thailand for three years. I
30:24
Speaker 9: think the fear would dissipate. I mean, she was so
30:27
Speaker 9: afraid she lied to police. And even when he goes
30:30
Speaker 9: to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk, she's still afraid
30:33
Speaker 9: and still can't tell the truth. Then he comes back,
30:36
Speaker 9: goes to San Francisco and becomes a guru.
30:38
Speaker 1: That means he had followers. Who's following this guy?
30:41
Speaker 6: Yes, sony. And the thing is, you know, it's one.
30:45
Speaker 1: Thing for you know, say with him like that to
30:48
Speaker 1: my husband, he usually says nothing and goes it goes away.
30:52
Speaker 1: But you're going to continue, aren't you Go ahead.
30:54
Speaker 6: I'm going to and I get the same thing from
30:56
Speaker 6: my way, but I continue talking anyway.
30:58
Speaker 2: But so you know, the issue is here.
31:02
Speaker 6: You know she knows right then and there you know
31:07
Speaker 6: somebody one four below had been murdered about the time
31:11
Speaker 6: he was out of the house on his cooling off
31:13
Speaker 6: walk and he comes back and says, don't tell anybody
31:17
Speaker 6: that I left.
31:18
Speaker 1: Don't tell anybody that I left.
31:20
Speaker 6: Yeah.
31:20
Speaker 1: Yes, And as she sat on it for years this woman. No,
31:25
Speaker 1: I don't think she's the killer, but I definitely think
31:28
Speaker 1: she impeded justice. Well, take a listen to Mari Montalbano
31:31
Speaker 1: with inside addition, while.
31:33
Speaker 10: They were never able to match the DNA on the
31:35
Speaker 10: cigarette to anyone in their database, they used genetic genealogy
31:39
Speaker 10: to get a name.
31:41
Speaker 9: Our suspect's name William Deruce.
31:44
Speaker 3: He was a thirty one year old man who lived
31:46
Speaker 3: upstairs with his wife, Michelle.
31:48
Speaker 4: The husband and wife gave each other alibis.
31:51
Speaker 1: She told our detectives a different story the truth.
31:54
Speaker 10: The truth, investigator say, was that the knight Current was killed.
31:58
Speaker 10: The couple got into a fight and William Druze left
32:01
Speaker 10: the apartment for more than an hour, enough time to
32:04
Speaker 10: have committed the crime.
32:06
Speaker 1: And more from our friend Sidney Sumner.
32:08
Speaker 11: Police followed hundreds of tips and leads looking for Rita
32:11
Speaker 11: Curan's killer. Investigators had thirteen main suspects, but ultimately the
32:16
Speaker 11: case turned cold. Evidence from the crime scene was carefully preserved,
32:20
Speaker 11: including Kurran's clothing, a robe, and a cigarette butt found
32:23
Speaker 11: next to her body. With nothing specific to point to
32:26
Speaker 11: anyone in their pool of suspects, Kieran's death became the
32:29
Speaker 11: oldest cold case the Burlington Police Department had. Detective Commander
32:33
Speaker 11: Jim treeb reopened the case and started from scratch. He
32:36
Speaker 11: put not a single detective on the case, but treated
32:39
Speaker 11: the crime as if it had just happened. A team
32:42
Speaker 11: of detectives and experts came together to review and investigate.
32:46
Speaker 11: Key pieces of evidence were subjected to new DNA testing,
32:49
Speaker 11: including the large cigarette butt. Male DNA was found, but
32:53
Speaker 11: it did not match the DNA of anyone in the
32:55
Speaker 11: national database or.
32:57
Speaker 1: Their suspect pool.
32:58
Speaker 11: Last year, more evidence, including Kurran's clothes, was set to
33:02
Speaker 11: a lab for new DNA extracting techniques, and the cigarette
33:05
Speaker 11: butt was also submitted again, this time to a genealogy company,
33:10
Speaker 11: and the testing paid off.
33:22
Speaker 1: Prime Stories with Nancy Grace with Me now special guest
33:28
Speaker 1: c Seymour. She's brilliant chief genetic genealogist at Paramon Nano
33:34
Speaker 1: Labs who helped crack Rita's case. Cec, I can't thank
33:40
Speaker 1: you enough for being with us. First we hear there's
33:43
Speaker 1: nothing on the cigarette but a lark. I don't even
33:47
Speaker 1: remember ever hearing of a lark cigarette but a lark cigarette.
33:52
Speaker 1: But things changed. Tell me what happened.
33:56
Speaker 5: Well, we got incredibly lucky with this case. After fifty
34:01
Speaker 5: one years, when that DNA was analyzed and we looked
34:06
Speaker 5: at those hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, created that
34:10
Speaker 5: file and uploaded it to the family tree DNA database,
34:14
Speaker 5: we had something happen that rarely happens. We got incredible matches,
34:20
Speaker 5: a first cousin once removed on the maternal side, and
34:24
Speaker 5: a first cousin once removed on the paternal side, And
34:27
Speaker 5: so it only took a couple hours to narrow it
34:31
Speaker 5: down to just one man, which was William Deruce. He
34:35
Speaker 5: was the only child of his parents because his mother
34:38
Speaker 5: had died shortly after his birth, so he was the
34:41
Speaker 5: only male in the world that would be a first
34:44
Speaker 5: cousin once removed with each of these top matches, and
34:48
Speaker 5: so it was really very straightforward. After all these decades
34:53
Speaker 5: of investigation, it came down to just building a very
34:57
Speaker 5: straightforward tree.
34:59
Speaker 1: Well, you know more, when you say it like that,
35:01
Speaker 1: it sounds so easy, But you're hearing doctor Jeffrey Jensen
35:05
Speaker 1: with US from Wisconsin describing the elaborate process of processing
35:13
Speaker 1: a dead body and trying desperately to find DNA and
35:19
Speaker 1: then you say, oh, it was easy. I don't think it, issy.
35:22
Speaker 1: I think it's easy to use CC, but explore, say
35:26
Speaker 1: my part of it.
35:27
Speaker 5: There were generations of detectives and analysts, crime scene investigators
35:33
Speaker 5: that did not have an easy time. That's the point
35:36
Speaker 5: I'm making is after all of this difficult investigation for
35:39
Speaker 5: decades and all the people who poured their heart and
35:42
Speaker 5: soul into it, when it came to me, it really
35:46
Speaker 5: was straightforward. This was one of the most straightforward cases
35:49
Speaker 5: I've ever worked in investigative genetic genealogy.
35:52
Speaker 1: So Sace, let me understand. While the suspect, William Deruce,
35:57
Speaker 1: who was thirty one years old at the time of
35:59
Speaker 1: the murder, had not given DNA, you're saying you built
36:03
Speaker 1: out a quote family tree of DNA when you find
36:07
Speaker 1: similar DNA where people had uploaded DNA in these ancestry
36:12
Speaker 1: dot com family tree twenty three and meters type sites.
36:16
Speaker 1: So you find something similar, so you know the killer.
36:20
Speaker 1: What did it come from? The cigarette butt or the
36:22
Speaker 1: rape kit? It came from the cigarette butt, so saliva,
36:26
Speaker 1: you know that these people are related to the killer.
36:30
Speaker 5: Correct, So the only reason you would to share significant
36:33
Speaker 5: amounts of DNA with someone is if you have a
36:35
Speaker 5: common ancestor. So each of these people shared about six
36:38
Speaker 5: and a half percent of their DNA and that meant
36:41
Speaker 5: that they're going to share either grandparents or great grandparents
36:45
Speaker 5: with the suspect. Because this happened so long ago, when
36:48
Speaker 5: he was older, he's more likely going to be the
36:50
Speaker 5: older generation. So their great grandparents are his grandparents. And
36:56
Speaker 5: so that amount of DNA is extremely significant and invest
37:00
Speaker 5: negative genetic geneology. It wouldn't hit in a law enforcement database,
37:05
Speaker 5: but in a family tree DNA database where we're looking
37:08
Speaker 5: for distant cousins. That's going to be right up at
37:10
Speaker 5: that top of the lyric.
37:11
Speaker 1: And how does it make you feel, daughter, Jeffrey Jensen?
37:14
Speaker 1: Every time you process. I didn't use process because it
37:18
Speaker 1: sounds like maybe someone digging through a paper file. But
37:23
Speaker 1: when you perform an autopsy that somehow, maybe decades later, you,
37:31
Speaker 1: along with someone like ccmore, can bring a killer to justice.
37:35
Speaker 7: Nancy, it just reinforces the basic concepts of autopsy work.
37:42
Speaker 7: You know, it's just you know, taking time to collect samples,
37:50
Speaker 7: taking photographs, and most important is maintaining the evidence in
37:57
Speaker 7: a chain of custody so it can be used as evidence,
38:00
Speaker 7: you know, years and decades later, but it just it
38:04
Speaker 7: just points to the fact that even basic uh evidence
38:10
Speaker 7: collection is so important in solving these these tragic crimes.
38:16
Speaker 1: And to Mary Campbell, this is Rita's sister. It's amazing.
38:21
Speaker 1: At the time that police collected that Lark cigarette buck,
38:24
Speaker 1: they had no idea how it would transform into a
38:29
Speaker 1: DNA match. They could not fathom the world of DNA
38:33
Speaker 1: at the time Rita was murdered. My question to you is,
38:37
Speaker 1: over all the years since your sister's murder, did you
38:40
Speaker 1: ever give up hope at any point that the killer
38:42
Speaker 1: would be caught?
38:44
Speaker 8: Yes, I think we. I think at the fiftieth we
38:48
Speaker 8: released a statement through the Burlington Prepress that that would
38:52
Speaker 8: probably be the final year that we would be participating
38:56
Speaker 8: in any kind of historical update on the case, etc. Pictures,
39:04
Speaker 8: because we felt that after fifty years we had two generations,
39:09
Speaker 8: our children and our grandchildren. We thought it was time
39:13
Speaker 8: that we stopped doing any more publicity about the case.
39:21
Speaker 8: So at that point there was sort of a give
39:24
Speaker 8: up of hope, but our faith would never allow us
39:28
Speaker 8: to give up our hope. We saw our parents die
39:34
Speaker 8: without knowing we knew what happened to our parents when
39:39
Speaker 8: she died, and how their lives changed. So we didn't
39:44
Speaker 8: give We never really gave up our faith hope, but
39:50
Speaker 8: we did give up probably our physical hope. If there's
39:54
Speaker 8: a difference.
39:55
Speaker 1: What did happen to your parents, you said you stood
39:58
Speaker 1: by and watched what happened to your parents when.
40:00
Speaker 8: It first happened, I would say my mother prides were hollow.
40:05
Speaker 8: It's just the grief that my mother carried was very hard,
40:11
Speaker 8: and my father as well. But a man doesn't always
40:15
Speaker 8: show his griefs in the same way.
40:16
Speaker 6: But they.
40:19
Speaker 8: Refused to let this killer take them, and they following
40:24
Speaker 8: my sister's death, they were involved with every community activity
40:29
Speaker 8: you could mention. They surrounded themselves with the community of
40:33
Speaker 8: Milton that supported them. They knew their story and they
40:37
Speaker 8: sat with them at meetings and they didn't have to
40:39
Speaker 8: give any kind of explanation. Their friends knew, and so
40:44
Speaker 8: they stayed in the community and they gave back their
40:47
Speaker 8: entire life, and that's how they survived. They didn't take pills,
40:52
Speaker 8: they didn't take drinks. They had their faith, they had
40:56
Speaker 8: their rosary beads, and they had their community.
40:59
Speaker 1: That was a change a life. Now that the case
41:01
Speaker 1: has been solved.
41:02
Speaker 8: Well, I think it's a it's a it's a it's
41:04
Speaker 8: a good relief, it's a it's a big exhale. We're
41:10
Speaker 8: we're at peace with what happened. We there were so
41:14
Speaker 8: many rumors when my sister was killed. Did she was
41:17
Speaker 8: she involved with some nefarious dag or did she did
41:21
Speaker 8: she have a fight with somebody? Did someone try to
41:24
Speaker 8: get at her because they were mad at my father,
41:27
Speaker 8: my brother, myself wasn't mistaken identity because she had not
41:31
Speaker 8: been in that que that uh, that the apartment very long,
41:37
Speaker 8: and did they want the person who was in there
41:39
Speaker 8: before her? And so there were a lot of rumors,
41:42
Speaker 8: and as it ended up, she was in the wrong
41:45
Speaker 8: place at the wrong time. She was totally innocent of anything.
41:50
Speaker 8: She never did anything wrong, and we we have that piece.
41:56
Speaker 1: This case solved. Nancy Grace story signing off good Bye,
42:02
Speaker 1: sid