RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) - A man who raped and killed a University of Vermont student from Arlington after a chance meeting was convicted yesterday, capping a case whose brutality sent a shudder through this state.
After more than six hours of deliberations, jurors found Brian Rooney guilty of aggravated murder in the 2006 slaying of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21.
He now faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
“I think it’s unfortunate that Brian Rooney encountered Michelle that night, but I am grateful that she’s the last woman that he will ever harm,” said Gail Fendley, 56, of Falls Church, a longtime friend of the victim’s family.
Miss Gardner-Quinn, an environmental studies major, had just transferred to Vermont when she vanished Oct. 7, 2006. She happened across Rooney on the street and asked to borrow his cell phone.
For six days, police chased leads while investigators and volunteers scoured the lakeside city of Burlington in a hunt for clues.
A hiker found her half-dressed body under some leaves and stuffed into a crevice about 20 miles away in Richmond. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled.
“This was a violent, random crime,” said Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, whose office prosecuted the case. “It scared a lot of people.”
Rooney, 37, a construction worker and father, was charged 12 days later after semen found on Miss Gardner-Quinn’s body matched his DNA.
When the jury moderator announced the verdict, Miss Gardner-Quinn’s father - sitting in the front row of the gallery - put his hand on his wife’s leg, then clasped her left hand and kissed it.
“Justice works once in a while,” said Diane Gardner-Quinn, the victim’s mother, as she hugged former Burlington police Chief Thomas Tremblay, who oversaw the investigation. “Twenty months is a long time.”
Witnesses said Miss Gardner-Quinn was out with friends on a night when her parents were visiting for homecoming. She got separated from them just before 2 a.m. and her cell phone died.
She borrowed Rooney’s.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.