After more than 50 long years, detectives with the Burlington Police Department had uncovered

DNA evidence that would finally lead them to the suspect in Vermont's oldest and coldest

case, that of redoccurring.

But the investigation didn't stop there.

They had to be sure.

And detectives did the legwork.

Starting off the original investigation from decades earlier, so they could finally

deliver the news that Rita's family feared might never come in their lifetime.

If you haven't yet, listen to Part 1 of Rita's story on Dark Down East first, to hear the

details of the investigation into her murder up until the summer of 2022, 51 years after

Rita Curry's life was so brutally taken at just 24 years old.

Now Rita Curry's family finally has closure, and this is the story of how they got it.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Rita Curry's story Part 2 on Dark Down East.

In late 2022, Burlington Police Department sent a DNA profile pulled from a cigarette

but found at the center of Rita Curry's crime scene to Parabond Nanolabs for sequencing

and familial DNA comparison, hoping that it would reveal a possible suspect.

Not long after receiving the profile, Parabond Nanolabs' chief genetic genealogist CC Moore

shared her results.

Here is an excerpt from those results, directly from the report.

It is Parabond's hypothesis that the subject is highly likely to be William Richard Deruz.

William should be strongly considered as a candidate to be the suspect based on the fact

that genealogical connections were found to all five of the subject's top genetic matches,

...