 Good morning everybody and thank you very much for being here on this. This day that is filled with mixed emotions I think ultimately those emotions are are ones of relief of pride for me for this department but mostly of gratitude to a family that has been through an incredible or deal for more than half century. And we are are very, very cognizant of of our debt to you and our obligation to. There are a number of people here with us today, members of the current family. There are people who have been involved in this case over the great number of years that it had been an active cold case in this police department. To discuss the 1971 murder of Rita current. Rita current was murdered in Burlington on July 19 or 20 in 1971. That's 18,844 days ago, more than half a century. She was a teacher and a singer and a giver and she was loved and the random violence of her murder left a stain on our community and it devastated her family. And for 50 years they have waited for justice. Rita's parents died waiting for it. Through all those years the men and women of the Burlington Police Department have never stopped seeking it on their behalf. There's not a lot of death, but they know that it's nothing compared to what the families of the lost experienced. There is a line from Robert Frost about the loss of a child. The nearest friends can go with anyone's death and come so far short they might as well not try to go at all. No one but the current family knows truly knows the loss that they have suffered, but for generations this police department, and most recently, the tenant detector detective commander Jim Trebe and his team. This case has always been about the current family. A few years ago, Lieutenant Trebe reopened this case. He decided to abandon an older way of addressing cold cases in which one detective would be assigned to work the case alone when he or she had free time. And instead, he created a plan to select a case and treat it like the crime had just been committed and put a team effort on it. And this meant multiple detectives and technicians examining reports and physical evidence and thinking about the case together. And you'll hear more about this from Lieutenant Trebe directly shortly. He will tell you about a remarkable closure, something that shows that this detective unit is the equal of any in the nation and any in the world. It can't be forgotten that they worked this case while simultaneously addressing three of the most busiest years from an investigatory standpoint in our city's history. Six murders, all of them solved, nearly two dozen shootings, 52 gunfire incidents, even as they continue to work this case. That said, what our detectives have done was only possible because of the incredible thorough initial response all those years ago, and the work of successive generations of detectives who have worked this case kept it alive, both in our institutional memory and with the family. In 1971 detectives documented witnesses and statements, they saw where things were found, they recorded in what condition, all of that was instrumental to what was done here. They took and preserved items whose eventual scientific value they had no way of knowing. And decades later, a cigarette but recovered at the scene generated a DNA profile. Good detective work ensured that the profile could be connected to a suspect. Lieutenant Trebe and CC Moore of Parabon Labs will describe this part in greater detail. In his name, William DeRuse. He was a 31 year old man who lived upstairs with his wife Michelle. She was several years younger than he about Rita's age, and on the night of July 19 1971 they had been married only two weeks. They had a quarrel, William DeRuse left for a cool down walk. The next morning when police knocked on the couple's door to ask if they had heard anything the night before Michelle said no. The next morning the couple went out to quarrel or the walk. The husband and wife gave each other alibis. Five decades later she told our detectives a different story, the truth, but there will always be unanswered questions. Did she know did she hear Lieutenant Dick Bolio's report said that Rita put up a vicious struggle. And that is his quote. She fought for her life to floors below the DeRuse. After her murder, William DeRuse moved to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk. Michelle barely ever saw him again. Today, William DeRuse would be 83. But there is not a cop in this building who would not happily put handcuffs on him. Instead he died in San Francisco in 1986 15 years after murdering Rita. He was 46, and he died of acute morphine poisoning. He was about to believe that he continued to hurt people to be a dangerous person, although there is no evidence of anything as horrific as his murder of Rita current. In 1991, another unrelated killing rocketed rocked Vermont. Patricia Scoville was murdered in Stowe, her parents lobbied for Vermont to join the national combined DNA index system or CODIS in 1998. And later that resulted in the identification and conviction of the man who had murdered her. And that same year in 2008 Vermont's DNA database was officially renamed the Patricia Scoville Memorial CODIS laboratory. The recording and storage of criminals DNA was vitally important. But our case today demonstrates the equal importance of open source DNA databases. When someone doing an ancestry or genealogy swab checks the box saying that it's okay for law enforcement to use this, they are helping solve murders. They are bringing evil doers to justice, they are delivering closure to families. And when police work these open source databases we don't get unlimited access to go on DNA fishing trips, a DNA profile generates a list of matches and partial matches, just like someone seeking to know more about their ancestry. And here involves good old fashioned detective work police work labs like the one that we've worked with have identified hundreds of suspects, finding justice, they've identified dozens of victims to finding closure. And in the end, this is why we do the work that we do is justice for victims. Last week we held a luncheon here in this room to share the details of this extraordinary closure with the family. It was a touching event. This is the family I was struck by the absence of a woman who died before I was born whom I never knew, although growing up in Chitton County I remember hearing this story. It was not just Rita's absence. Just 24 there was a whole life in front of her as a beloved teacher, how many lives would have been touched, whether it been partners or children or whole families that never were and never will be. There were never ends and for Rita that 50 years of Burlington cops and detectives have worked this case. It's for them that Lieutenant Detective Commander Jim treat and his team did this work and I am immensely proud of them. And so I will now allow Jim to come up and give more details about this case. And for the Lieutenant to come and speak. I would then ask that he's going to also allow us to speak virtually with CC more of paragon labs. There will be some acknowledgements from Detective Tom Shannett, who was the, who had the case at the time, Detective Lieutenant Commander Jim treat decided to change it from a single case officer into a joint effort. And then there will be an opportunity for the, the mayor to speak was joined us thank you sir, and then the family and you will, we will hear from you last as the most important voices in this room. And then we'll have an opportunity for q&a, and including our various important partners who are here, the state's attorney is present, Senator Patrick Leahy, who was the state's attorney at the time of this crime is present. And those individuals will be available for that q&a as well. So, the country. Good morning, and thank you all for being here. I'm detectives Lieutenant James treating I'm the commander of the detective service bureau here at Burlington PD. Before I get into the case presentation, I want to say something to the current family. It's been amazing getting to know you all. I moved by your, your strength your courage and your resolve and thank you for believing in us and supporting us in this journey to get you these long waited answers. Thank you very much. Next, I want to thank my team. The men and women of the Burlington Police Department's detective service bureau. You all are the brightest, most tenacious, relentless detectives I have ever worked with. I'm so proud of all of you, and I'm glad to say I'm honored to be here to say that I work beside you. The work that you did on this case, given the current family some closure was amazing, but at the same time you also investigated six other murders and you gave that those families closure as well. Awesome, you guys are amazing and I'm so proud of each and every one of you and I want to acknowledge you all by name. Lieutenant my win. Detective Sergeant Michael Bellovo, Corporal Jamie Morris, Detective Corporals, Thomas Shannett, Crystal Rinn, Phil Tremblay, Chase Bavori, Eric Pradoville, Derwin Ellerman, Erica Shaler, Lauren Byrne, Nikki Moyer. I also want to acknowledge our identification technicians who also work very hard on this case. It's Amy Sahanich and Courtney Mitchell. Corporals Joseph Coro, Patrick Hartnett and Senior Officer Zach Beal. I also want to acknowledge some individuals that worked in the detective bureau have moved on to other jobs. I also want to acknowledge the former Detective Corporals, John Stowman, Regal Silke, David Bowers, and former police officer Rebecca Spittle. Thank you all very much. You're amazing. And I'll start out with the case. I'm just going to do a basic overview. The case has been reported on a lot over the last 50 years, I think you all will be provided reports at the conclusion of this press conference. In 1971, Rita was discovered murdered in her bedroom and her apartment on Brooks Avenue. She was discovered by her roommates. The police department was ultimately summons to this location. They began processing the crime scene. An important part of that processing and I'm still amazed today after all these years, what they were focused on and they actually collected a lot of stuff. They were way ahead of their time and one of those items being a cigarette butt. The cigarette butt was discovered next to Rita's right arm. The cigarette butt hadn't been crushed or put out and been dropped there and that's, that's, and there was Ash found next to her right arm between her body, along with the cigarette but concluding that the cigarette but had been dropped there and burned out on the floor next to her body. At the time. It was a large cigarette but that's all they had it was just a brand name but they collected it anyway not knowing what DNA was going to be for another 15 years. That cigarette but sat in evidence for over 40 years. And in 2014, our retired detective his name is Jeff beer worth was working the case. He submitted that cigarette but to the office of the chief medical examiner's office in New York City for DNA processing. And they were able to extract a male DNA profile from that cigarette but that cigarette but DNA was put into CODIS. And we never got a hit from that, meaning that the suspect or the donor of that cigarette but had never been convicted of a felony is DNA was not entered into CODIS. Jeff over the years following that. Basically methodically gum shoe detective work work down that that suspect was getting DNA to try to rule people out from that cigarette but DNA. We decided to pick up the case, and as chief laid out we decided to do it as a team we were going to finish this case as a team, and we're going to throw everything at it. I've been 51 years and the family have been waiting a long time to get some answers and I met with a family and made a promise to. I told them at the end of this, we really going to have an answer for one way or the other whether we're solvable or it was not solvable but they were going to have an answer, once and for all. So we took three different approaches to this. A lot of it was going to be about forensic evidence. They collected a lot of evidence and we were going to use that to our advantage. We were going to contract with the lab, we're going to do do some new testing with DNA. There's some cutting edge stuff that was out there and we end up contracting with a lab out of Florida DNA labs international and they were using machine called the m back to be a rudimentary description of what the m back actually is I'm probably not going to do it justice. Basically, it's saturating a surface clothing with sterile solution and ultimately sucking it up with like a jetback style instrument into a storage tank, where they will ultimately separate the DNA and examine it. We decided that there was some evidence in this case that we thought that we could send off to DNA labs and have a retested after all these years to see if we could develop a DNA profile of our suspect. That was one part of it. The second part was we were going to, we're going to reopen the victimology, we're going to go through and scour through all the reports and we were going to identify anybody that was close to Rita, and any name that was in that box. We added it to our suspect pool. Anybody was close to the scene. One individual was close and his name was Wayne DeRuse and he lived up on the third floor of the same building. He had been contacted three times by police, even alibi he and his wife alibi to each other that they were home on night didn't hear anything didn't see anything. We were going to leave anything to chance he was on our list. And we did that with a lot of people we cast a wide net and we were going to see what we come up with. The third part of that is we knew we had a DNA extract from the cigarette butt that Detective Beir was able to develop. We were thinking about doing some genealogy and you know probably about seven years before this case started, I remember seeing the documentary where a genealogist researcher, CC more as it would be was in the documentary and she was talking about how they were doing this research to help law enforcement agencies across this country solve these cases and I was absolutely just amazed by the work she was doing, never knowing that all these years later, she as fate would have it would end up being the person doing our case. So we ended up getting the extract we sent it to paraben labs. And they had to re sequence it to have it entered into an open source DNA database family tree and jet match. And as she pointed out the unsung heroes in this investigation are all those people who opted to allow law enforcement to look at their DNA for the purposes of solving these cases. And that's what happened in this case and CC more I believe is here with us. And I'm going to let her speak to her research on the cigarette butt extract. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How are you. We can hear you. Great. I'm going to get my slide up. Can you see my slides. Yes. I want to echo everyone else's comments that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the original crime scene investigators, because the DNA evidence ended up being so incredibly key. And they couldn't have possibly imagined the power that we would have at this time to actually use that to narrow it down to just one person. This case is a fantastic illustration of the power of investigative genetic genealogy to narrow down the pool of suspects to just one person. This case was over 50 years old, and it only took a few hours to narrow it down to William and I. So this is my chart showing the investigative genetic genealogy's outcome. You can see we had five matches, they're outlined in red here. Match number one and two were approximately sharing about 6% of their DNA with our own DNA. That's actually a lot. These are fantastic matches, and they share about 6% of their DNA with this unknown, well, who was the unknown suspect. And then we have fantastic supporting matches, matches three, four and five. Matches one and three traced back to the unknown suspect. And then we have fantastic supporting matches, matches three, four and five. Matches one and three traced back to the couple in orange, John or and Susanna Davies. So we knew that the suspect also must descend from that couple matches to four and five. And then we have the three traced back to the couple up in purple, John, when I am and Gerberig and a lot. And so we knew that the suspect must also descend from that couple. So working down toward the present, I was able to identify a union marriage or a triangulation between these two couples descendants, and you'll see an aqua there or light teal, Lewis, Lois, or married married William DeRuse and unfortunately Lois passed away right after, soon after their marriage and the birth of their only child, William DeRuse. So William DeRuse would be the only individual who would carry the DNA from these unique sets of ancestors and be in the right position in the tree to be the DNA contributor. He was a first cousin once removed of both matches one and two, but you can see that match one connects on his mother's side, match two on his father's side. He was a second cousin once removed to match number three, a third cousin to match number four and a fourth cousin to match number five. Now this is, as I said, incredibly rare. We had a huge stroke of luck after 50 years and generations of detectives working this case and it finally came down to advanced technology. And so the Burlington Police Department and Detective Trebe really, we owe them a big debt of gratitude as well for being willing to embrace this advanced technology. Now when I was working this case and it narrowed down to William DeRuse, at first I was confused because he wasn't from Burlington, but public records are so important in these types of cases. And I pretty quickly was able to find this marriage record. William Richard DeRuse marrying in Burlington, Vermont in July of 1971. Well, this was pretty incredible because it put him in the same area of the crime within only about two weeks of Rita's murder. And even more shocking was his address that was documented here, 15 Brooks Avenue showing that he was living in the same building. And so this was really an incredible find and it tied him very solidly to the place of the crime at the time of the crime. I really want to thank Burlington Police Department for allowing my team and I at Paribon to be part of this investigation. Our hearts go out to Rita's family. When we're working these cases, we're thinking about you all the time. And we really want to thank everybody involved in this case and for sticking with it long enough that we could be part of it. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you, CeCe. Well, as you can imagine, after hearing that information, he jumped to the top of our list as our main suspect. We knew doing some research that his wife at the time of the murder was still alive. We sent two detectives to the West Coast to interview her and she was cooperative and gave us an interesting statement that filled in a lot of gaps that we didn't have. She met William DeRuz in San Francisco, ultimately moving to Burlington because her family was here. They had been living at that address on Brooks Avenue for approximately two months. While living there, they were discussing their life plans. They were going to have a child together. And William was going to be a hairdresser, a barber. And I was going to start a barber shop in Burlington. They were discussing these plans. They were married about two weeks before the murder. The night of the murder, she tells us that they get into an argument and that William leaves the residence. So he doesn't have an alibi at the time of the murder. He was gone. He ultimately returns back to the residence at some point later in the evening after she was gone to sleep. The next morning, police officers are knocking on their doors. When she first learns for the first time that someone was murdered downstairs, they lied to the police department. They told William Durris, told the police officers that they were home. They didn't hear anything and didn't see anything. And immediately upon closing the door, he turned to Michelle and asked her and told her that if the police ever showed up again, she was to tell him that he was home all night because he had a criminal history. And if they knew he was out, they would come after him for this. And she believed him and she kept that lie up three times. Immediately after the murder, the plans, these life plans of having a child in a barbershop, they disappear. Within a short period of time, he wants to run away and go to Thailand to become a Buddhist monk, which he ultimately doesn't leave his wife behind. She ends up going over there in the spring. They contact each other briefly and the marriage ends. We also found out that he was married to another wife. He kind of drops off the radar for a little while, then shows back up in San Francisco in 1974, where he meets his next wife, her name was Sarah. We interviewed her as well. She said that she met him at a Zen lounge in San Francisco. She described him as being a guru. He was going by the name Dutch at the time. They fell in love. They ended up getting married. He didn't tell her a lot about Thailand. He didn't tell her a lot about Vermont. But when we asked her about violence and did she ever witness anything, he was able to describe two incidents. One incident where they were meeting with a female friend, the three of them, they were talking and unprovoked. Wayne Durus took a pocket knife from his pocket and stabbed a female in the abdomen for no reason whatsoever. She was ultimately taken from medical care. He was arrested. He returned home the next day acting as if nothing had happened. When she asked him about it, he basically said, oh, I thought I stabbed you and then went about his business. Later on in the relationship, they were at the kitchen table. They were having dinner and for no reason, he explodes and he attacks her. And he strangles her with both hands to the point of losing consciousness. Now, we'll remind you all that Rita Kern caused a death of strangulation. She ends up leaving him. And the next we find out about him is he dies on a floor in a sleazy hotel in San Francisco of a drug overdose. The next part of this is the forensic evidence. And there's some more evidence that we uncovered. We contracted with DNA Labs International out of Florida to retest some of the clothing that we thought that the suspect had touched to see if we could get DNA after all these years. One of the things that we knew the suspect had touched was Rita's house code. They had been forcefully ripped open, ripping all the buttons off. We ended up setting that house code off to DNA Labs International along with other things. And they ultimately tested the front part of the house code using the NVAC system. They ended up finding a mixture of at least four people on the front of her house code with at least one male. When they compared that mixture to Rita Kern's known DNA sample and William Duruz's the cigarette butt donor, they were able to conclude that it was 65,000 times more likely that that mixture contained Rita's DNA, William Duruz's DNA, as opposed to Rita's DNA and three strangers. The standard was described as being strong, strong support that William Duruz's DNA was on her house code. Basically to recap everything. William Duruz was living upstairs. The time of the murder, the window of opportunity was 70 minutes. To me, that's really important because that says that it was somebody close by that they knew who was there and wasn't there. They took advantage of that opportunity. To Michelle, the roof said he was a smoker. She didn't know what kind of cigarettes he smoked, but knew that he was a smoker. The night of the murder, he got in a fight and he left. He had no alibi. The next morning when the police show up, he tells her to lie about where he was because he was afraid they were going to come after him. Their life plan, hence the changes after the murder runs off to Thailand. Shows back up in San Francisco. He meets his next wife and then we see the propensity for violence, unprovoked violence. Given all these information, our detective bureau, myself, the chief, we're all confident that William Duruz is responsible for the aggravated murder of Rita Kern, but because he died in a hotel room of a drug overdose, he will not be held accountable for his actions. But this case will be closed. My name is Tom Shunet. I was the designated the lead detective on this case. Truly took a village to solve. So we have a few individuals and organizations who do like to thank who were genuinely helpful for the course of this investigation. First off, Paravan Nanolabs and C.C. Moore for her genealogy work leading to the suspect identification and Tom Shaw, who was our law enforcement liaison. The office of the chief medical examiner in New York City for their work developing a profile from the cigarette butt at most of the time. Forty four years old and tested it. DNA Labs International for their enhancement of the cigarette butt profile, as well as finding a match matching profile under his clothing from the scene. Seasons of justice for their financial support and all the important work that they do to support both case investigations and the closure that that those investigations bring to families. Distributing unit for special investigations. The Truman County State's attorney, Sarah George, her office. From the Mossay Police Cold Case Unit, Heather Gibbs. From the Vermont Friends of Collaboratory, Joy Matt, Jill Abraham, Rebecca Wilkins. Arbor Sciences, DNA, Jed Match, Family Tree. And for their hospitality and assistance with facilitating witness interviews and DNA collection, the Eugene Oregon Police Department the Chilton County Sheriff's Office in Alabama, the Donna Anna County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico and all of the previous investigators who put a tremendous amount of time, effort and personal investment into this case. Including retired Burlington Police Chief Tom Tremblay. Retired Burlington Police Corporal came to develop. Former Burlington Police Detective Jeff B. And finally, the current family for your unwavering strength and support for so long, this case. Thank you. This event brings us back to a terrible night in the city over the 50 years ago when there was a really terrible, violent, random murder in this community and that event has caused current family so much pain and grief in this community, so much grief for for many years. And it is painful to stand here with you and recognize that terrible loss. It is tragic that because of the death of the suspect there will never be an accountability for what happened that night. I do hope that the work of the Burlington Police Department has done will bring some measure of resolution closure to the family. We need to thank the ability to do that is only possible because of generations of committed officers of law enforcement personnel who shoot this case so carefully and diligently for so long, beginning of the hours after Rita's death up until today. Tenantry, thank you for walking us through the rigor with which the PPD pursued this case. And thank you for making that pledge to the family and make it possible for the city to be good on that today. It's only possible to get to this event because of those generations of rigorous work, maintaining integrity, the investigation of the first critical hours and doing that through the decades. People of Burlington are fortunate to have a police department that is able to pursue that and deliver on the commitment that one of the terrible events happens here in Burlington. We need to do everything we can to make sure that there is ultimate accountability. Thank you. Thank you, Chief for organizing this event and for meeting this out. And as you all have been here on this important day. Thank you. I was thinking so. Mary. Good morning. Just a few days ago, we filled this room with about 60 detectives Burlington Police Department staff and my family. We had a nice lunch and shared stories. We thanked everyone in the Burlington Police Department for all they did. To solve my sister's case. I thanked them again this morning. Rita went to Mount St. Mary's Academy in Burlington. She lived at home while attending Trinity College. It was a good home for three of us kids, our parents and our grandfather. Rita and I lived at home until each of us was 24 years old. The difference was the two weeks after Rita moved out, her life was cut short. Amongst all the pictures of Rita on the internet, the two most often shown are one taken from our driver's license and one from her yearbook. What's not shown is a little poem by E.B. Browning. That she chose to be next to her yearbook picture. Little did she know that that poem would soon appear on her gravestone. Her headstone reads, our daughter Rita, I seek no copy now. I seek no copy now of all life's first hat. Leave here the pages with long missing curls and write me new. My future's epigraph, New Angel Line, unhoped for in the future, unhoped for in the world, sorry. Life in those days was very different. My parents didn't have social workers and specialized grievance counselors. They had the confessional and the rosary jeans. My mother came here from Ireland. And my father from Newfoundland. We were an old fashioned, strong captive family. I don't think so much about the guy who did this. As I do about Rita and my parents, what they went through. I pray to my parents and I pray to Rita. My wife Nancy tells me, we will get through this. We are current strong. Tom Tremley is a retired Burlington detective now working as a consultant to the families of victims of crime. The other day, Tom called Nancy and I aside and shared with us an inspiring message from when he first met our family 52 years ago. It influenced him ever since. I'd like Tom to come up now and share that message with all of you. Thank you, Tom. You know, it's already been said the impact that this case had on so many generations of all of us. And I met with the current family very early on when I began investigating this case in the late 80s. And I think it was the power and the reverence of their voices. Power and the reverence of their voices, mostly the voices of Rita's mom and dad. And many of us, many of us in this room carried with us through a career. It was a daily reminder of the trauma and crime victims and their families experienced sometimes life long. But working this case, working this unsolved case made us better police officers. It advanced our efforts at victim services and offender accountability. Furthermore, it advanced this department in a way to make us more compassionate and more professional organization. And so this case has had its impacts certainly on the family and our hearts go out to as has been said today. But it has had a immeasurable impact on professionalism, this organization and the women and men who represented it so well to this conclusion. Thank you, thank you. Yes, that's my turn. I can get through this. Pardon the notes. I first like to thank my family as well. I'd like to thank my husband who's always been there. He was there in July 1971 and he's still there. I want to thank his my children and my grandchildren who aren't all here, but who have preserved our story and our family, Rita as a part of our legacy and we never let it go. We're not ashamed of her. This is our case and this is our sister and she's always with us. I want to thank my sister-in-law, my husband's sister and her family for always being there for me in the town of Heartland, which is a little away from Burlington for teaching their children about Rita. We now have two generations in our family that never knew her. We have our matriarch, my mother-in-law, my husband's mother, who was there in July 1971, helping out in the kitchen. And she's here. She was here last week and she's with us today and she is our matriarch and our model and she holds us all together. Three years ago, over three years ago at the onset of the investigation, I was introduced to acting Chief John Murad. At that time, he looked me straight in the eye, which he can do. And he said, Mrs. Campbell, and I'll paraphrase, we're going to get to the bottom of this, of your sister's case. We're going to, we're going to solve this case. I can say that because I have put one of my best detectives in charge of the investigation. If anyone can solve this case, Jim Treve can do it. But hold back, Jim Treve is a, is a, is a team player and he hasn't come over yet. Just remind me of that. We're happy that the Chief's words came to fruition, but I know that Jim will deflect all accolades and personal achievements from him to his team. Jim Treve is a team player and his team did not disappoint him. The team climbed up through the attic, so get the boxes, they went through the files, they had to deal with the old, old evidence, old files, but they did it, and they worked together. The team, it was the team who wrote the reports, documented the interviews, did the tests, did all the work, and those laborious tests. The team members left their family to travel to get, to have certain tests done. And, and various interviews. The team had to have patience, determination, and just plain grit with a little bit of Irish luck. I'm so proud of the Burlington Police Department. I'm so proud of the kindness, the consideration, the caring, and the compassion that they've shown to us over decades, over multiple administrations of multiple police officers. They have shown that compassion to me, to my brother, and to my father and mother, for the past 51 and a half years. The help they gave us through that time to keep Rita's story alive in the media meant so much to us. We're so thankful for this day. If you knew my parents, Tom and Mary, could you tell us a little bit about them? If you knew my parents, Tom and Mary Curran of Milton, you knew that they were committed community service people. They were involved in so many, so many activities I couldn't even list them today. And they did, they were involved before Rita's death, but they continued their dedication to all their services after her death as well. It is with them in mind, and Rita's memory, that I'm going to recognize an organization called Season of Justice, which Detective Jenak mentioned in his list. Season of Justice provided a grant to the Burlington Police Department to help cover the very expensive DNA testing and genealogy. And that DNA ultimately led to the solving of this case. This afternoon, there'll be a GoFundMe page announced, the beneficiary area of which will be Season of Justice. The name of the page will be Give Back for Rita. And I would encourage anyone who can to make a contribution to that fund. We would like to repay Season of Justice for the grant that was delivered to the Burlington Police Department. And that money will then be used and given to other families, other police departments in their quest solve their cold case. If you cannot, if you don't feel you can make a contribution at this time, then please share the GoFundMe page on your social media. I'm so thankful again for this day. Again, the beneficiary is Season of Justice. The name of the GoFundMe page is Give Back for Rita. Thank you. That concludes the formal presentation part. And we are now into a question and answer part for the media if there are questions. I think I'll stand and we can bring other individuals up as necessary if there are questions for individual members either of the team or of our political and community delegations or for the family. So we'll open it up for them. Yes. Can you spell the last name and also the wife based name Charity? No. So I can spell that last name. I can also tell you that as the question was can you spell the last name? Because sometimes the questions from the audiences don't get onto these. Yes, I can spell the last name. The last name is spelled capital D, lowercase e, capital R, and then O-O-S, DeRuse, and the first name was William. We will be distributing the report that was prepared. This report is essentially similar to an affidavit, but it is not because ultimately there will be no charges presented to a court in this matter owing to the death of the suspect. It was, however, presented to the Chippendon County State's Attorney. And State's Attorney George reviewed it and agreed that it contained probable cause, and that is what allowed us to be able to make this public acknowledgement. And I'm certain she would be available for questions about that. But we'll be distributing that report. The question, another part of the question was will Michelle DeRuse, who goes by a different name now, face any consequences? No, lying to the police is not a crime. It is not helpful. It is something that we hope that the trust in a police department can prevent and can limit, because ultimately we need the cooperation of our citizens and our communities. Public safety is a shared responsibility. And when police officers go and address these kinds of situations, we need to have that sense of cooperation. And that is built on trust. And it's built on something that I know this department tries to achieve on a daily basis and something that we are always working towards. Could you have reached the point we are now if Michelle DeRuse had not told the truth? So is that a key piece? It certainly is important. The notion, the question was could we have reached this point if Michelle DeRuse had not been as forthcoming as she was with detectives upon the re-interview? We were already at their door at that point. DNA had led us in that direction. That is an example of a thorough police department. We do everything we can to make certain that when we put a case forward, we are not merely meeting probable cause. We are meeting a standard that results in beyond a reasonable doubt and is going to easily get to that stage. That's our goal for everything that we do. That aspect, the statements that were given during those interviews, we put time and money into sending detectives to locations to do these interviews, to do interviews with the second wife who had no direct knowledge of the crime, but was going to give us additional information about that suspect. That is a component of creating a strong and compelling a case as possible. Would it alone have been either its absence had been completely majority? Or was it the key? I really can't say that. These are a totality of circumstance. These cases are built like an edifice, and every part of it is ultimately important. Again, the ways in which the original detective team documented the recovery of that cigarette, noting its position, noting the way it had burned out, noting where it was, photographing it. To them, Lark, the brand, was the most salient factor. They had no way of knowing that we would be able to find something inside it that actually linked to the individual. No way of knowing that. But because they did such a thorough job of documenting it, that was tremendously important. Each one of these pieces, it's very difficult to tell whether any one of them is the Jenga piece that removes the structure of the entire tower. It's really integral and totality of circumstance. Chief. Yes. What was Michelle DeWerse's maiden name? I couldn't see it on the marriage license. And what was her connection really to all of Burlington? So I don't know the name off the top of my head of a lead. It was Roach. The connection was that members of her family were employed here in Burlington. And so when they left San Francisco, they came here. And who was actually the officers that went and confronted her? And can they, if any of them are here, can they outline what actually happened? Did they say, we think you've been lying to us? Or did they give her a chance? One of those detectives is present. So who were the detectives who went and interviewed the decedents, the suspects, former wife? One of the detectives is here. And that entire encounter is described at length in the report that we will be disseminating. So in fairness to Michelle, I feel like I should probably clarify some points. She even had the point where Detective Phil Tremblay and I went and spoke with her. We talked around two occasions. The second time was in person. We sat down for over three hours in this interview. And I truly do not believe that she was aware that she knew about the murder. I think she lied at the time because she was young. She was naive. She was newly married. She was in love. I think she lied because he did have a criminal record that he had told her about. And she didn't want him to get in trouble for a crime that she didn't think he committed because when she came home, when he came home the night before, he got in bed like nothing happened. And when he woke up in the morning, she didn't have any indication that anything was there. And speaking with her, she's a very, very sweet woman. We shared this with the family. But I do not believe in my heart that she was aware that the murder had occurred or that she had any suspicion that he did it until we put the pieces together. Okay. Thank you all for being here with us today. I think that there will be an opportunity to talk to others if you want to ask specific questions. But we are incredibly grateful to all of you for being here today and to you, most of all, to the current family. Thank you very much.