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

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

24-year-old Rita Curran is found violently murdered in her Burlington apartment. The second grade teacher had recently moved out of her parents' home to share an apartment with  three other roommates. Curran was working over the summer break as a maid while taking graduate courses. Curran turns down a dinner invitation from her roommates, planning to spent the night in. When the roommates return home, they hang out in the living room for a time. When they turn in for the night, that's when Curran's badly beaten body is discovered.  An intense investigation was launch, but no suspects were identified. For more than 50 years, the carefully preserved evidence offered no leads. Now, will new  technology provide answers.   Joining Nancy Grace today: Mary Campbell -Sister of Rita Curran  gofundme.com/f/give-back-for-rita Matthew T. Mangino- Attorney, Former District Attorney (Lawrence County), Author: "The Executioner's Toll: The Crimes, Arrests, Trials, Appeals, Last Meals, Final Words and Executions of 46 Persons in the United States" Caryn Stark- Psychologist- Trauma and Crime expert- carynstark.com @carnpsych Paul Szych [ZIKE]- Former Police Commander (Albuquerque, NM), APD Domestic Violence and Stalking Unit, Author: "Stop Him From KillingThem", StopHimFromKillingThem.com, Twitter: @WorkplaceThreat CeCe Moore - Chief Genetic Genealogist, Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. Parabon.com, helped to solve Rita’s case   Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen- Professor of Forensic Pathology and Director of Autopsy and Forensic Services at the University of Michigan Medical School, former Medical Examiner in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin    Dave Mack- CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful 24-year-old young second grade teacher end up crumpled, partially nude, at a doorstep just before her death. How does that happen? And what does a cigarette butt have to do with this story? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friend Dave Mack at CrimeOnline.com. Beverly opened the bedroom door, saw that the room was in a state of disarray, and just behind the door was the body of Rita Curran, partially nude and crumpled on the floor. She'd obviously been in the fight of her life and didn't win.

Rita's curlers were still in her hair, but she had been beaten in the head and face. Rita was dead. She had fought her attacker hard, and it was later determined that she had been sexually assaulted. The medical examiner would find the cause of death to be manual strangulation. Let's just take what we just heard from our friends at Crime Online. Partially nude, the curlers still in her hair, crumpled at a bedroom door, the room in complete disarray. Having been in the fight of her life, a fight that she lost right there off the top. Let me go to Paul

Zeig, a former police commander in Albuquerque, author of Stop Him From Killing Them. Paul Zeig, right there. I know that she was attacked in her bedroom, in her home. She was either partially unclothed, stripped by her killer, or she was caught changing clothes or getting in or out of the shower or bathtub. No, no, she still has curlers in her hair. She must have been getting in or out of bed. So already I'm learning a lot. Most attacks that occur in your home are very much a surprise. Whether somebody crawls through a window, they pry a door open, or they slip in through the

garage. It's an attack that's sudden, it's vicious, it's meant to overwhelm. And very few people, male or female, are really prepared to defend themselves against something that they did not know was going to occur, especially with such viciousness. I want to go to Karen Stark, joining me, high-profile psychologist joining us out of New York. You can find her at karenstark.com. Karen with a C. Karen, I was thinking about her and still having her curlers in her hair. That tells me that she was either just going to sleep, just waking up, or in the midst of getting ready to go out. And all those times, especially when you're getting ready for bed or just waking up, that's the last time you expect an intruder. Why is that?

Do we lull ourselves into some sense of complacency? I think it's hard for anyone to imagine that something like that would happen to you. So it's a time when you're thinking about sleeping or just waking up, and you're an innocent person. Well, Karen, either you're tired at the end of the day and getting ready for bed, or you've just woken up and you're half asleep, half awake. Both times, you're vulnerable. Very vulnerable.

And, you know, that reminds me of something, Paul Zyke. I write in my book, Don't Be a Victim. People often say, well, I was at home. I didn't have the alarm on. That's the whole reason you need the alarm on. Absolutely. When we're at home and I've got my children there, I've got my 91-year-old mother at home, that's when I want the home protected more than any other time.

Hey, come on my TV. I'd be mad if you did not take it immediately. Take it and go. But what needs the protecting most is your family. And when somebody breaks in a home at night, it's much different than a daylight break-in. And during the day, they don't want you to be home. They want to take your items, your valuables,

and then they leave. At night, they know you're home. They know you're in the house. The type of predator who breaks in, knowing that people are in the house sleeping're in the house. The type of predator who breaks in knowing that people are in the house sleeping or in the house getting ready or getting in the house getting ready to go to bed. They are the ones that are capable or most capable of taking things to a much tragic ending. Rita, just 24 years old at the time she's murdered, much loved second grade teacher.

You know, I can still remember my second grade teacher, Miss Claribel Bryant. And I loved her so much. She encouraged me to write poetry. Jackie, my first poem, second grade, Round the Meadow, under clara bell bryant um can anybody in the studio or on the panel not remember your second grade teacher leo wolf leo wolf i mean you remember your said so this is somebody's beloved second grade teacher what What more do we know from Crime Online? Police found no signs of forced entry, but that was not uncommon for the area. Residents didn't lock their doors in Burlington, Vermont in 1971.

Investigators found blood smeared on the inside of the back door just off the kitchen, probably the route the attacker took to leave the ground floor apartment. In the initial stages of the investigation, several women notified police of anonymous late-night phone calls and peeping Tom incidents. It was later learned that during the investigation, Rita was one of the women to receive these phone calls

in the nights before her murder. Peeping Toms, hang-up phone calls. I mean, Matthew Mangino with me, well-known attorney, former prosecutor in Lawrence County and author of The Executioner's Toll, The Crimes Arrest Trials Appeals, Last Meals and Final Words of 46 Persons, Executions of 46 Persons in the U.S. Wow. Great book, Matthew. Matthew. Thank you. Wow. Great book, Matthew. Matthew, do you remember when you were prosecuting felonies, how often you would look in a homicide file or a rape file or an ag assault file and way back in the back of the rap sheet would be peeping Tom? a concern that certainly fits a profile of someone who is ultimately maybe a sex offender.

And in this situation, I'm looking at a peeping Tom. I'm looking at phone calls. This is someone who has some connection to this person. Maybe it's not a personal connection. Maybe it's a geographical connection. They live in the same building. They live in the same neighborhood. So they have the ability to look in the window. They have the ability to make these phone calls. So the first thing I'm going to do, if I know there's a history of this, is I'm going to start canvassing that neighborhood. I'm going to start asking questions from the neighbors and other people who live nearby of what they saw and what they know about these prior incidents. And have they ever seen anybody that looks suspicious in the neighborhood or who, you know, looked as though they were

involved in this kind of nefarious conduct. You know, you're right. I very often argue to jurors that it's human nature to covet what we see. And when you're talking about the attack and murder of a gorgeous young teacher like Rita, who was the peeping Tom? Who was calling and hanging up? Who had the opportunity to be in that neighborhood at that apartment complex repeatedly? So I agree with you, Matthew Mangino. What more do we know from Crime Online? Listen. Rita Curran was a 24

year old woman on summer vacation from her full-time job as a beloved second grade school teacher at Milton Elementary School. But rather than lounge around all summer, Rita decided to move out of her parents' home for the very first time and move into an apartment with roommates she didn't know that well, Beverly and Carrie. She also took a job as a maid at the Colonial Motor Inn and joined a barbershop quartet. She also began taking graduate courses at the University of Vermont. Joining me right now is a very special guest. It's Rita's sister, Mary Campbell.

Mary, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Do you remember when your sister made the decision to move out? So when I moved back home after my graduation, it was decided she was going to move out during that month of June. And she was gone by her birthday, June 21st. I remember going to the apartment and delivering a birthday gift. So she probably had made the decision before I came back home. I just knew when I went back home that she was going to be trying to live in an apartment. Tell me about the apartment your sister picked out. And how did she end up with two women she didn't know?

It was very common in the Burlington area that if you had an apartment and then you were in school, you wanted to go back to your home state, you sublet in order to hold the apartment so that you'd have it when you came back in September. It was very common for a roommate, because I had done it myself, for people that were renting to say, okay, this room is going to be available for the summer, or this room is available for so many months while the other person is gone, or they moved out and we just need this room occupied. And so financially, it made sense to do that because it was easier than trying to find an apartment on your own.

So there were often ads in the paper that looking for a roommate who would share the expenses of the apartment. At that time, I think it was, you know, between my mother and father and Rita, and they just decided this was a good way to try it. You could stay there until September. Then if you wanted to get your own apartment or have a different apartment with your own friends, but you could try living away from home. She had not lived away from home all through college. So this was sort of a place that had a minimal commitment. You know, that's really interesting. Paul Zyke, former police commander, Albuquerque, author of Stop Him From Killing Them. Paul, I did the same thing. I advertised for a roommate and got one

and didn't think anything about it. But when I look back on what I did, I realize how wrong, in fact, that may be. But it's very, very common, Paul. It is. And unfortunately, most females that are murdered in my 30 years of experience, they know or have some direct association with their attackers. And the fact that you have people coming in and out, you know, maybe looking at your apartment, people that you're

talking to about renting a room or cohabitating with you, it tears down a wall between you and them, something that normally would not be crossed. And for the wrong sort of men with the wrong mentality, once that's pulled down, they simply refuse to let go and can become obsessed and begin to stalk. And unfortunately, a lot of that leads to sexual assault and other crimes. But it's something that women across America are faced with, especially in today's environment with these dating apps. It's very scary.

And in this case, the two roommates were, in fact, women. So in her mind, what does she have to fear? Now, take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. Rita Curran was at a rehearsal for her barbershop quartet until just after 10 p.m. When she got home, her roommates, Beverly and Carrie, were getting ready to grab a late dinner with another friend, and they invited Rita to join them. Rita declined, and the trio left around 11.20, and Rita prepared to go to bed. Rita's roommates returned home around 12.30 a.m. with one of their boyfriends, Paul Robinson,

and sat up talking until about 1.30 a.m. Beverly Lampere was about to call it a night and opened the door to the room she shared with Rita, and opened the door to a nightmare. Joining me right now is Dave Mack, investigative reporter for CrimeOnline.com. So we know that they were up that night till 1.30, and it was Rita. The two roommates had come home from the late night dinner, and along with them came one of their boyfriends, correct? That's what we understand, yes.

So I assume that he would probably be the very first suspect. The way that it all played out, he wasn't home. He was not in the apartment when this took place. You have to remember that Paul Robinson, the boyfriend, and the two other roommates, they were all out together. And they came home together. So he wasn't at the apartment alone with Rita. Did he stay over?

According to a couple of reports, yes, that he was in a dating relationship with one of the girls, and he and his girlfriend had gone off to a bedroom when they heard Beverly screaming. I would still put him on the list of suspects if he's in the house, and I would extensively question the female roommate to make sure she really could alibi him that he really was in the room with her. Whenever you introduce a male in the in the scenario, immediately they become a suspect. Paul's like agree or disagree.

Absolutely. One hundred percent. And I have found that unequivocally to be a point of interest. You look if you when you find a dead female, you look at who she was last seen with, who was male, who she has a restraining order against, who she was in a domestic relationship or who was a friend of a friend who happened to be around. Men see something they want and sometimes the wrong type of men then act. But you're right. Men are the nexus in these cases. At this point, Matthew Mangino, what should cops be doing?

Well, number one, they should be looking very closely at the apartment. They should be that the crime scene should be analyzed for every possibility. We're looking for fingerprints and we're looking for blood and we're looking for other fibers and things that might be left at the crime scene. And all that evidence has to be preserved and the area has to be, there has to be some method of canvassing the neighborhood. There has to be some method of reaching out to people who might have saw something. We have a very specific period of time. So at 1130, they leave. They come back at 1230.

Now, hold on just a moment. Dave Mack, after the roommates got home didn't they all stay up and talk she was still alive at that point correct well we don't know see rita was in her bedroom ah got it but they heard the scream later yeah well okay backing up on the timetable here they got home together at 12 30 and they noticed that rita's bedroom door was not pulled shut all the way there was a a little bit open, but they began, they didn't worry about it. They were talking. Okay, so Rita was not in the room with them talking.

She was in her own bedroom, they assumed, asleep. I would use the scream as the beginning of the timeline, because then they all go to bed, and once in their bedrooms, they hear the scream. No, they hear the scream when Beverly goes to bed around 1.30 in the morning. Beverly and Paul and the other girlfriend, they were all in the living room together. Paul and the girlfriend go off to their bedroom. Beverly goes to her room. This is 1.30 in the morning now. They've been home for about an hour. When Beverly then tries to open the door, she sees Rita and screams. Ah, okay. I see what you mean. I see exactly what you mean. I think she said

there's something wrong with Rita. Got it. Got it. So 1.30, the scream is the roommate, not Rita. Got it. So the Mangino's correct. It's the timeline between

them leaving and them coming back. So there's about a one hour or so, give or take a few minutes timeline window that the murder occurred. What more do we know? Listen. While Rita Curran lived in an apartment

with her roommates, directly above their apartment was a newly married couple, Michelle and William DeRuse. The couple had only been married about two weeks and police questioned both of them about the activities surrounding the apartments that night. The couple told police they'd been home all night they didn't hear anything they

didn't see anything william deruse was cleared three times michelle and william deruse were questioned about the night of the murder and all three times they gave the same answer they were home all night they didn't hear anything they didn't see anything satisfied investigators cleared william deruse as well as several other persons of interest, and the case went cold. Well, they're doing everything right. Once you clearly alibi the male friend in the apartment, no, it's not him, then you immediately go door to door, and you extend out and out and out until it's no longer feasible. And of course, they start with the upstairs neighbors.

Mary Campbell is with us. This is Rita's sister. Mary, do you recall when you discovered that Rita had been killed? Oh, yes. I might not be able to recall what we talked about a month before, but I have very vivid recollections of the day that the detectives and the Vermont State Police, because we were in Milton, a different town than Burlington. door and told my mother and my grandfather. And then my grandfather just ran to the hallway and hollered to my brother and I, Tommy Dookie, which is my nickname, Duke, get up. Rita's been killed. Rita's been killed. And he was frantic. And then I went down to the kitchen and it was my mother and father had a big farmhouse, and the police were there.

My mother was, by then, finding her way to sit down, but she just was bent over and sitting, rocking in a straight-back chair, holding her head. At that time, did you have any idea your sister had been murdered? Yes, we knew that my grandfather had said that she was killed, but then by the time we got to the kitchen, the verbiage changed to being murdered. So you knew very quickly that there was no car crash or accident. No, yes, that's what you learn very quickly. You think, oh, car crash, you know, accident.

She was out at night driving. That's the first thing you think of. Hit a deer or whatever, which is very common around here. But then it was quickly, it was the murdered. And then it all just sort of hit us. And it was my brother and I and my mother. And then my grandfather, my father's sister was out in the cabins, and he ran after her, and she came in, and we were just all there. And my dad was at IBM, and he'd already gotten to work. They told him that his father had had a heart attack, and he needed to get home. So when my father drove in the driveway, he was greeted by his father. So, of course, he knew something was wrong

because they had told him his father had had a heart attack. And then my grandfather told him in the car as he drove in, and my grandfather was sort of the messenger going around to the different places on our property telling people that were there. And then it was just very real. At the beginning, did anyone have any idea who could have murdered your sister? Absolutely not. Of course, she had had some different boyfriends over time,

and of course they talked to them and did all their testing that they needed to do. They interviewed my father and all of us if we had people that we knew that would do this. And I remember my mother saying at the time, and she said that for many years later, I hope to God that it was never anyone we knew because we couldn't believe we would know a person who would do that. When you said they talked to your father, they questioned him as a potential suspect?

I think they questioned all of us. They questioned where we were, but we were pretty straightforward. Everybody was home. My brother was home, I was home, and we were just all there. But you know what? That is SOP, Standard Operating Procedure, I will never forget when my now friend, Phil Vetrano, former firefighter in Long Island, was pulled out of his daughter, Karina Vetrano's, funeral to give a DNA sample.

His daughter is commonly referred to as the Long Island Jogger. Karina was found brutally murdered, her teeth knocked out, along a jog she had intended to take with her father, and he didn't go that day. And in her funeral, they actually pulled him out to test his DNA. Of course, it did not connect to the killer, but i believe his name is chanel lewis but yes that is normal isn't that true uh let me ask you this matthew mangino isn't it true that especially male family members are questioned and even give their fingerprints and dna yeah that's not uncommon um you know certainly you're going to look look at people who had some sort of relationship with her, whether it were a former boyfriend, acquaintances that she had, people that she worked with in the school district. Typically, when a wife is murdered, the husband is going to be the first initial suspect.

And that always is the case. When your daughter is murdered, yeah, I think you're going to look to the father. You're going to want to know a DNA sample when your daughter has been murdered. I think it also factored in that Phil was supposed to go with her on the jog and he didn't go and he found the body. Nancy, this is Dr. Jensen. Yes. Guys, you're hearing the voice of Dr. Jeffrey Jensen, professor of forensic pathology Pathology, Director of Autopsy and Forensic Services, University of Michigan Med School, and was medical examiner in Milwaukee County,

Wisconsin. Go ahead, Dr. Jensen. Investigators were basically left with blood typing, primitive blood typing, maybe some kind of trace evidence comparison like hair or nails, possibly even broken fingernails in an attack like this. You would expect to have possibly transfer of evidence from the victim to the assailant that can be matched or skin and blood underneath the nail of the victim. So, Dr. Jeffrey Jensen, you have in fact done rape kits. You have taken the nails and studied them from murder victims. And explain to me why you would look under the nails of the murder victim. Well, a victim would, in an attempt to ward off the attacker, possibly scratch the individual

and that would deposit the assailant's skin and blood underneath the nails. And I can't tell you how many cases have been actually solved by the recovery of that very valuable evidence on an attack like this. And of course, with a victim like Rita, you then have to do a rape kit on a dead body. And what does that entail, doctor? Well, it entails taking samples from the victim, you know, hair samples, combings, swabs, and actually looking for some type of semen deposit or other evidence that would indicate the actual identity of the killer. You know, I think that you are airbrushing the truth.

You have to take the dead victim's body, not only look under the nails, but then you have to do a pelvic exam of the dead victim. You have to do a full-on vaginal and anal search to find if there's semen or any other DNA. You have to comb the pubic hair. You have to look at the entire skin area around the pubic area for any epithelial or skin DNA that may have been left there. You have to check the mouth cavity. You have to check the entire body for potential touch DNA. A lot goes into it. It takes a long time. Now, I want to circle back to Mary Campbell. This is Rita's sister joining us today. Now, let me understand the Daruse did not live directly above your sister, did they? That's correct. It was a three-story house, three apartments.

And they were on the third floor. So this was a house, not an apartment complex. It was an old, yes, it was an old in-town, Burlington, Vermont, in-town with a sidewalk. And it was a three-story house that at one time was one home, but it had been divided into three apartments. And the DeRues people were on the third floor. And the people in the middle floor were not home. Speaking of the DeRues, take a listen to Hour Cut 7 from Dave Mack. William DeRues got married a second time, but according to his second wife, he was not a nice man and had an evil temper.

William DeRues' first wife, Michelle, could have told the truth about the alibi she provided for him, but she didn't. Not until much later, the former Michelle DeRuse told police that her husband of two weeks left their apartment the night Rita Curran was murdered and that he was mad when he left. OK, wait just a minute. Dave Mack joining us right now. Are you telling me that the then Mrs. DeRuse lied? He wasn't there? In fact, he had stormed off after an argument with her? Yes, ma'am. That is absolutely correct. Well, that's not allRuse had a big fight. The fight was big enough that William decided he needed to leave the apartment and go on a cool-down walk.

By the time he got home, Michelle was already asleep. As police investigated the murder of Rita Curran, Michelle provided the airtight alibi for her husband, claiming they were both home all night and didn't leave the apartment. Shortly after the murder, William DeRuse fled to Thailand, where he became a Buddhist monk. Three years later, in 1974, William DeRuse returned to the States and settled in San Francisco. He and Michelle were divorced, and DeRuse used some of his training in Thailand to become a fairly well-known guru in the Bay Area. Okay, right.

Stop right there. Dave Mack. So, after their divorce, when the then-wife announces he's not a nice man and P.S. I lied about his alibi, you do know, Dave Mack,

that when you lie to a cop and it's on a police report, at the bottom of that report, it says, I hear, but I swear. That is, to all our sense of purposes, that's perjury. Really, when you lie to a cop, it's dumbing down and diluted by calling it a false report to a cop. But now she comes out with it. Now she tells me that they had a big fight and he stopped off at the time of the murder. And then he goes to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk. Are you sure? Nancy, believe it or not, and this is one of those stories that you look at and you keep going back saying this couldn't have happened.

But yeah, they'd only been married two weeks michelle and william when this took place and she lied she straight up said he is we were here all night he didn't leave we didn't leave you know they stayed that course the entire time and she kept that to herself as you said she lied i hope they will charge her with a crime well she had to be lying because she's afraid of him he was in thailand for three years i think the fear would dissipate i mean she was so afraid she lied to police and even when he goes to thailand to become a buddhist monk she's still afraid and still can't tell the truth then he comes back goes to san francisco and becomes a guru that means he had followers who Who's following this guy?

So Nancy, and the thing is, it's one thing for your husband to come home. You know, when I say what like that to my husband, he usually says nothing and goes away. But you're going to continue, aren't you? Go ahead. I'm going to. And I get the same thing from my wife but i continue talking anyway but so um you know the issue is here you know she knows right then and there you know somebody one four below had been murdered about the time he was out of the house on his cooling off walk and he comes back and says

don't tell anybody that i left don't tell anybody that i left yeah Don't tell anybody that I left. Yeah. Yes. And then she sat on it for years. This this woman. No, I don't think she's the killer, but I definitely think she impeded justice. Well, take a listen to Mara Montalbano with Inside Edition. While they were never able to match the DNA on the cigarette to anyone in their database, they used genetic genealogy to get a name. Our suspect's name, William DeRuse. He was a 31-year-old man who lived upstairs with his wife, Michelle. The husband and wife gave each other alibis. She told our detectives a different story, the truth. The truth, investigators say, was that the night Curran was killed, the couple got into a fight, and William DeRose left the apartment for more than an hour, enough time to have committed the crime.

And more from our friend Sydney Sumner. Police followed hundreds of tips and leads looking for Rita Curran's killer. Investigators had 13 main suspects, but ultimately the case turned cold. Evidence from the crime scene was carefully preserved, including Curran's clothing, a robe, and a cigarette butt found next to her body. With nothing specific to point to anyone in their pool of suspects, Curran's death became the oldest cold case the Burlington Police Department had. Detective Commander Jim Trebe reopened the case and started from scratch. He put not a single detective on the case, but treated the crime as if it had just happened. A team of detectives and experts came together to review and investigate.

Key pieces of evidence were subjected to new DNA testing, including the larg cigarette butt. Male DNA was found, but it did not match the DNA of anyone in the national database or their suspect pool. Last year, more evidence, including Curran's clothes, was sent to a lab for new DNA extracting techniques, and the cigarette butt was also submitted again, this time to a genealogy company, and the testing paid off. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. With me now, special guest CeCe Moore. She's brilliant. Chief Genetic Genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs

who helped crack Rita's case. CeCe, I can't thank you enough for being with us. First, we hear there's nothing on the cigarette but a lark. I don't even remember ever hearing of a lark cigarette, but a lark cigarette. But things changed. Tell me what happened. Well, we got incredibly lucky with this case. After 51 years, when that DNA was analyzed and we looked at those hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, created that file and uploaded it to the family tree DNA database, we had something happen that rarely happens.

We got incredible matches. A first cousin once removed on the maternal side and a first cousin once removed on the paternal side. And so it only took a couple hours to narrow it down to just one man, which was William DeRuse. He was the only child of his parents because his mother had died shortly after his birth. So he was the only male in the world that would be a first cousin once removed with each of these top matches. And so it was really very straightforward. After all these decades of investigation, it came down to just building a very straightforward tree. Well, you know, Cece Moore, when you say it like that, it sounds so easy. But you're hearing Dr. Jeffrey Jensen with us from Wisconsin

describing the elaborate process of processing a dead body and trying desperately to find DNA. And then you say, oh, it was easy. I don't think it is easy. I think it's easy to use, Cece. But explain why you just think. Well, I'm talking about my part of it. There were generations of detectives and analysts, crime scene investigators that did not have an easy time.

That's the point I'm making is after all of this difficult investigation for decades and all the people who poured their heart and soul into it. When it came to me, it really was straightforward. This was one of the most straightforward cases I've ever worked in investigative genetic genealogy. So, Cece, let me understand. While the suspect, William DeRoos, who was 31 years old at the time of the murder, had not given DNA. You're saying you built out a, quote, family tree of DNA when you find similar DNA where people had uploaded DNA in these Ancestry.com, Family Tree, 23andMe type sites. So you find something similar so you know the killer. What did it come from, the cigarette butt or the rape kit? It came from the cigarette butt. So saliva. You know that these people are

related to the killer. Correct. So the only reason you would share significant amounts of DNA with someone is if you have a common ancestor. So each of these people shared about six and a half percent of their DNA. And that meant that they're going to share either grandparents or great grandparents with the suspect. Because this happened so long ago when he was older, he's more likely going to be the older generation. So their great grandparents are his grandparents. And so that amount of DNA is extremely significant in investigative genetic genealogy. It wouldn't hit in a law enforcement database. But in a family tree DNA database where we're looking for distant cousins, that's going to be right up at that top of the list. And how does it make you feel, Dr. Jeffrey Jensen, every time you process? I hate to even use process because it sounds like maybe someone digging through a paper file, but when you perform an autopsy that somehow maybe decades later, you along with someone like

CeCe Moore can bring a killer to justice. Nancy, it just reinforces the basic concepts of autopsy work. You know, it's just, you know, taking time to collect samples, taking photographs. And most important is maintaining the evidence in a chain of custody so it can be used as evidence, you know, years and decades later. But it just it just points to the fact that even basic evidence collection is so important in solving these tragic crimes. And to Mary Campbell, this is Rita's sister. It's amazing at the time that police collected that Lark cigarette, but they had no idea how it would transform into a DNA match. They could not fathom the world of DNA at the time Rita was murdered. My question to you is over

all the years since your sister's murder murder did you ever give up hope at any point that the killer would be caught um yes i think we i think at the 50th we released a statement through the burlington pre-press that that would probably be the final year that we would be be participating in any kind of historical update on the case, et cetera, pictures, because we felt that after 50 years, we had two generations, our children and our grandchildren, we thought it was time that we stopped doing any more publicity about the case. So at that point, there was sort of a give up of hope, but our faith would never allow us to give up our hope. We saw our parents die without knowing. We knew what happened to our parents when she died and how their lives changed.

So we never really gave up our faith, hope, but we did give up probably our physical hope, if there's a difference. What did happen to your parents? You said you stood by and watched what happened to your parents. When it first happened, I would say my mother, her eyes were hollow. It's just the grief that my mother carried was very hard. And my father as well. A man doesn't always show his grief in the same way, but they refused to let this killer take them. And they, following my sister's death, they were involved with every community activity you could mention. They surrounded themselves with a community of Milton that supported them. They knew their story and they sat with them at meetings and they didn't have to give any kind of explanation.

Their friends knew. And so they stayed in the community, and they gave back their entire life, and that's how they survived. They didn't take pills. They didn't take drinks. They had their faith. They had their rosary beads, and they had their community. How has it changed your life now that the case has been solved? Well, I think it's a good relief. It's a big exhale.

We're at peace with what happened. There were so many rumors when my sister was killed. Was she involved with some nefarious gang? Or did she have a fight with somebody? Did someone try to get at her because they were mad at my father, my brother, myself? Was it mistaken identity because she had not been in that apartment very long? And did they want the person who was in there before her? And so there were a lot of rumors, and as it ended up, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was totally innocent of anything. She never did anything wrong. And we have that peace. This case solved. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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