Murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn

Michelle Gardner-Quinn (born January 28, 1985) was an undergraduate student at the University of Vermont. In the early morning hours of October 7, 2006, she was walking home to her campus dormitory in Burlington, Vermont, after a night out with friends. She borrowed a cell phone from a passerby, Brian Rooney, to make a call to an acquaintance. A jewelry store surveillance camera captured her walking east with Rooney at approximately 2:34 a.m. that morning. She was not seen alive again.

Six days later, on October 13, 2006, hikers found her body near Huntington Gorge in the neighboring town of Richmond, Vermont. An autopsy determined that she had been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled.

At a press conference held the same day her body was found, police announced the discovery and stated that they had arrested Brian L. Rooney (born June 27, 1970) on separate charges unrelated to the case. Rooney, a construction worker with a history of prior arrests, was facing charges from Caledonia County related to sexual assault and lewd conduct with a child, as well as federal charges dating to 1998 and additional charges of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in Essex County. He had also faced charges of sexual assault on a minor and on an 18-year-old woman, in connection with which he was believed to have used an ether-soaked cloth to subdue the victim. A former girlfriend with whom he had a child stated he had threatened to kill her on numerous occasions.

Investigators noted that, in addition to being the last known person with Gardner-Quinn, Rooney was reportedly seen with cuts on his hands when he stopped at a business in Winooski several days after her disappearance. On October 25, 2006, police charged Rooney with aggravated homicide in connection with Gardner-Quinn's death. He pleaded not guilty. During pretrial proceedings, Rooney's attorney inadvertently disclosed confidential information about DNA evidence at a press meeting, prompting the trial to proceed under increased confidentiality restrictions.

On May 22, 2008, a 12-member jury convicted Rooney of aggravated murder. The conviction rested largely on DNA evidence from semen recovered from Gardner-Quinn's body; his defense argued that the quantity of genetic material recovered, described as "two nanograms of sperm," handled by a forensic lab with a history of errors, was insufficient to support a conviction.

On October 17, 2008, Rooney was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole — the only sentence available under Vermont law for aggravated murder. Judge Michael Kupersmith told Rooney, "You are the lowest of the low." Rooney offered condolences to Gardner-Quinn's family while maintaining his innocence. His attorney later argued on appeal that the state had failed to prove her death occurred at the time of the sexual assault, a required element of the aggravated murder charge. In February 2011, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled 3–2 that the trial had been conducted appropriately and affirmed Rooney's life sentence. As of November 2023, Rooney was incarcerated at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vermont.

In the aftermath, Gardner-Quinn's family and community established Michelle's Earth Foundation in her memory, supporting youth environmental education, and created a scholarship in her name at the University of Vermont. An essay she wrote about environmentalism shortly before her death was later featured publicly.