Police in Vt. Find Body Of Student
Man Questioned in Death Of Senior From Arlington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 14, 2006; Page B01
The body of a missing college senior from Arlington was found yesterday off a rural road near the University of Vermont. Police said that the man with whom she was last seen six days ago was arrested on unrelated sex assault charges and was being questioned about her death.
Burlington Police Chief Thomas Tremblay said the body was tentatively identified as that of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21. The body was discovered about 15 miles southeast of downtown Burlington, near a swimming hole popular among college students and residents, Tremblay said.
  An FBI agent tags an evidence bag at the an investigation scene in Burlington, Vt. (Toby Talbot - AP) |
He said it was not yet known how Gardner-Quinn was killed or when her body might have been left at the spot. Police said they are investigating her death as an apparent kidnapping and homicide.
"We are not done yet," Tremblay said in an afternoon news conference at Burlington's City Hall. "There is still more work to be done."
Gardner-Quinn -- whose disappearance last Saturday was the focus of an intense investigation that fanned across several nearby communities -- was last seen walking from Burlington's downtown area toward campus, about five blocks away.
A surveillance camera captured her walking with Brian Rooney, 36, a construction worker who lent her his cellphone so she could call friends after the battery in her phone died, police said.
Rooney, of nearby Richmond, Vt., has not been charged in Gardner-Quinn's slaying, Tremblay said, although he was being interviewed by detectives last night. Tremblay said Rooney was charged yesterday with sexual assault and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child in Caledonia County, about 80 miles east of Burlington. He declined to elaborate on the charges.
Rooney is to be arraigned Monday on those charges, Tremblay said.
The disappearance and death of Gardner-Quinn was at least the third such incident in the past year involving a female college student. The body of University of Virginia student Elizabeth M. Hafter, 22, was found Oct. 1 along the Blue Ridge Parkway with a single gunshot wound to the head after she had been missing a few days. And in September 2005, Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl was found slain in rural Mathews County. Behl, 17, of Vienna, was found one month after she was reported missing from the Richmond campus.
Yesterday, Tremblay urged anyone with information about Gardner-Quinn's case to call authorities. He said an autopsy was scheduled for this weekend.
After several days with few leads, the investigation quickened midafternoon yesterday. While Vermont State Police canvassed the swimming hole, authorities cordoned off a half-block in a residential neighborhood in Burlington not far from where Gardner-Quinn was last seen.
Using various tools, they dug out an area in the back yard of a house where concrete had been poured this week, according to the Associated Press and Burlington television stations. The house was somehow connected to Rooney, they reported.
