Worst fears come true in Vt. search

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Hikers near a rural gorge yesterday found the body of a University of Vermont student who disappeared a week ago while walking back to her dormitory on a downtown Burlington street, police said.

Police said 21-year-old Michelle Gardner-Quinn had apparently been slain, and identified Brian L. Rooney, 36, of nearby Richmond, as the suspect in a crime that has deeply unnerved this bucolic college town. Rooney, who police say is the last person seen with Gardner-Quinn, was arrested yesterday on unrelated sexual assault charges.

As ashen-faced Burlington Police Chief Thomas Tremblay announced ``with a heavy heart" that the six-day search for Gardner-Quinn had ended, the outgoing student's friends sobbed, their worst fears realized.

``I don't even know what I'd say," said Adam Briere, 19, a close friend.

University of Vermont president Daniel Mark Fogel said he was devastated. ``All of us are filled with intense anguish and sorrow at the terrible news and the loss of one of our students," he said in an interview.

While awaiting autopsy results to confirm the identity of the body and cause of death , police would not describe how Gardner-Quinn had been killed, say whether she had been sexually assaulted, or say how long she had been dead. More crime scene processing is needed before Rooney could be linked to Gardner-Quinn's death, Tremblay said.

The student was reported missing last Saturday after she failed to show up for an outing with her parents, who had been visiting Burlington from Arlington, Va. Gardner-Quinn, who majored in Latin American history and environmental studies, had transferred in September from a college in Baltimore.

As her parents kept vigil in Burlington, Vermont police, FBI agents, and National Guard troops, augmented by eager students and other volunteers from the university, scoured Burlington and the surrounding area.

But yesterday's discovery came about through a phone call from a group of hikers alerting authorities to a body in an area that had not been searched, the bank of Huntington Gorge, a popular swimming hole in Richmond, about 15 miles from Burlington. On Tuesday, police searched a house near where the body was found that they said was related to Rooney.

Rooney had been the focus of the investigation for days, though until yesterday police had refused to identify him or call him a suspect. Police had interviewed him and knew his whereabouts for most of the week before his arrest yesterday.

Gardner-Quinn made a call from Rooney's cellphone, and a jewelry store surveillance camera captured the two walking on Main Street in downtown Burlington at roughly the same time, police said. Yesterday, police asked for the public's help in tracking the whereabouts of a red Jeep Cherokee belonging to Rooney. Police said they have searched the vehicle, but urged anyone who might have seen the Jeep between last Saturday morning and Monday morning to call investigators.

Rooney's former father-in-law described him as an erratic and abusive man unable to hang on to jobs and chronically behind on child support payments.

``He's the scum of the earth," Roger Martin of Craftsbury, Vt., said in an interview this week. ``He'd make my daughter do things she didn't want to do. . . . If she didn't do it, he'd say he'd hurt himself."

Rooney was $13,000 behind in child support to Martin's daughter, with whom he has an 8-year-old girl, Martin said. He also said that Rooney often sniffed gasoline and aerosol cans to get high.

Rooney, most recently employed as a construction worker, has been accused of violence toward women in the past, court documents show.

A 23-year-old former girlfriend sought a restraining order in November 2005, alleging that Rooney ``has been sexually and emotionally abusive."

``I don't feel safe going anywhere by myself, because he shows up everywhere I go," wrote the woman, with whom Rooney had another child. ``Brian is always driving by my house, following me, calling."

Rooney will be arraigned Monday on charges of sexual assault and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, police said. The alleged crimes happened in Caledonia County and Essex County, about 80 miles from Burlington, before Gardner-Quinn's disappearance, but police said they only discovered them while investigating Rooney this week.

The child sex charge stemmed from an action in 1998, according to Essex County State's Attorney Vincent Illuzzi.

Gardner-Quinn's disappearance prompted a sense of vulnerability in Burlington, where three colleges dominate daily life. Confirmation of her death, which quickly rippled across the city yesterday afternoon, appeared to deepen those concerns.

Women around campus said they would be more cautious, particularly at night.

``I'm definitely not going to walk anywhere alone," said Kerrie Keller, an 18-year-old freshman from Maine. ``My parents called me and asked me please not to walk anywhere alone."

At J.P.'s Pub, where Gardner-Quinn was celebrating a friend's birthday in the hours before she vanished, bartender Amy Delorme pulled the missing person fliers off the walls after news of the body's discovery.

``I saw it on the TV, so I just took them down," she said, shaking her head. ``People are just so sad."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com; Raja Mishra at rmishra@globe.com.