WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-A Stranger is Watching, Part 1

A Stranger is Watching, Part 1

Burlington, Vermont - October 3, 2007

One year has passed since the UVM community mourned the loss of one of its own. Senior Michelle Gardner Quinn was kidnapped as she walked back to campus from a downtown bar, raped and murdered. The campus was stunned; its sense of security, shattered.

One year later, has anything changed?

"I think the students are definitely more aware, and that helps with the security on campus," UVM junior Kaelyn Murray said.

"I don't use an iPod when I walk anytime because I like to hear if someone's coming up behind me for whatever reason," senior Magdalena Jensen said. "It's just a weird safety thing, but I think every woman and every person should be aware of it."

"I don't think it's changed so much, other than the fact the people won't let females walk home alone," senior Blake Seidman said.

But late last Friday night, several women could be seen walking toward campus alone.

The sense among students who spoke to WCAX News is that the crimes against Michelle Gardner Quinn were an aberration. And the statistics show they're right. The Women's Rape Crisis Center estimates only 1% of all sexual assaults in Vermont are by strangers. Advice such as walk in groups and stay in well-lit areas fails to keep women safe when the attacker is someone she knows.

"Our focus always wants to go to the person jumping out of the bushes. It never wants to go to the person that we know," UVM Police Chief Gary Margolis said.

Margolis said high-profile cases like Michelle Gardner Quinn and the recent reports of sexual assaults against two women at Castleton State College bring attention to the issue. They lead to candlelight marches and safety seminars and examinations of campus security. But these cases of stranger attacks create a challenge, too.

"Awareness is raised when the Michelle Gardner Quinn tragedy occurs or when the Castleton State College tragedy occurs," he said. "But the double whammy on it is not only did that horrible event happen, but the focus becomes on the stranger sexual assault, which statistically on a college campus and in our general population is not where it's happening. That provides a whole set of challenges to communicate safety issues to our female population."

Police say Brian Rooney, the man charged with attacking Michelle Gardner Quinn, had never met her. And the women assaulted at Castleton State have not identified their attackers. While assaults by strangers are statistically rare, they happen.

"I think on a day-to-day basis, we definitely forget that Burlington is another little city and there are problems in every little city," Jensen said. "And we maybe just need to be a little more aware of what happens around us."

UVM has just reported its 2006 crime statistics, as required by a federal law known as the Clery Act. Last year, 22 sexual assaults were reported to confidential sources like counselors or the Women's Resource Center. Only two sexual assaults were reported to police. In 2005, one rape was reported to police and fourteen sexual assaults were reported to confidential sources. Seven rapes and nineteen sexual assaults were reported in 2004.

Kate Duffy - WCAX News