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Body of Missing UVM Student Found

Burlington, Vermont - October 13, 2006

The mystery of a missing UVM student has been solved.  Twenty-one year-old Michelle Gardner Quinn was found dead near the Huntington Gorge in Richmond -- an apparent murder victim. Police also arrested 36 year-old Brian Rooney. He has not been charged with killing Michelle Quinn, but he is the prime suspect.

"She has tentatively been identified as Michelle Gardner-Quinn. The manner of Michelle's death appears to be a homicide," said Burlington Police Chief Tom Tremblay, at a Friday afternoon news conference.

While Chief Tom Tremblay was announcing the tragic news in Burlington, investigators were still at the Huntington Gorge, where Michelle Gardner-Quinn's body was discovered four hours earlier. Police say hikers spotted the body near the edge of the gorge. The grim discovery ended the search that started seven days ago when storefront security cameras photographed her walking up Main Street with a man whose cell phone she had borrowed to call friends. From the beginning he was the focus of the investigation. It included intensive searches in and around his mother's home in Richmond. Police said they knew his name, but they were unwilling to identify him or call him a suspect -- until today.

"We are now prepared to identify Brian Rooney age 36 of Richmond as a suspect in Michelle's disappearance," said Tremblay. "A short time ago Mr. Rooney was arrested and is currently in custody on charges unrelated to Michelle's disappearance."

Rooney was arrested for alleged sex crimes in Caledonia County that came to light during the Gardner-Quinn investigation. Court records show he has a lengthy record in four counties for relatively minor alcohol-related offenses with no prior sex crime convictions.

On Friday police searched a home under renovation in Burlington about two blocks from where Gardner-Quinn was last seen. The contractor says Rooney had been a construction worker at the site. Police released a photo of the car he was driving when Gardner-Quinn disappeared, requesting that anyone who saw the car between last Saturday and Monday, to call them.

Rooney is scheduled to be arraigned on the unrelated sex charges in St. Johnsbury on Monday. Charges related to the apparent murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn will have to await the autopsy findings.

Brian Joyce - Channel 3 News