$10,000 Reward Offered For Missing Vt Couple

ESSEX — The void in the neighborhood feels greatest during the holidays, Laurie Singer says.

Singer’s family lived next door to Bill and Lorraine Currier for years. The couple’s ranch-style home on Colbert Street in Essex, which used to come alive each Halloween and Christmas, has stood dormant these past seven months.

“When it came to Halloween, everybody that walked by the house in the neighborhood that knew them, they said, ‘I miss the smoke that came out of the garage,’ that sort of thing,” Singer, 43, recalled last week.

Police detectives continue to sift through evidence in an effort to determine the whereabouts of the Curriers, who vanished from their home in June. Bill Currier, 49, who worked at the University of Vermont, and Lorraine Currier, 56, who worked for Fletcher Allen Health Care, were reported missing by Bill Currier’s sister June 9, 2011 after the couple failed to report to work.

A long-haired man was spotted driving the Currier’s green Mercury. The car was found in a parking lot, not too far from the Currier’s home on June 10th.

The Essex Police Department has two to five detectives working the case on any given day, acting Police Chief Brad LaRose said last week. The department also regularly asks the Vermont State Police for assistance, he said.

“We have developed further leads, which we are currently investigating,” LaRose said. “This is information that we have developed through our investigative efforts, rather than an outside lead.”

LaRose again requested that anyone with information regarding the Curriers’ disappearance call the station.

The acting chief has said police suspect foul play and have uncovered “possible signs of a struggle” at the home.

Ground searches have turned up empty. Police have scoured swaths of land in Essex, as well as parts of Colchester, Richmond, South Burlington and Williston.

In the most recent large-scale ground search, which took place Oct. 25, police focused on an area around a cellphone tower in Fort Ethan Allen in Essex. The tower relayed an unanswered telephone call made at 7:26 a.m. June 9 to Bill Currier’s mobile phone, police said.

“I don’t envision us doing additional ground searches, unless we have specific information about a specific area, because of weather conditions,” LaRose said last week.

Singer said she hopes police find the Curriers soon, to bring closure to their relatives.

“I hope for the family that something is concluded,” she said.

The family has taken care of the Curriers’ house in the couple’s absence, Singer said.

“We always notice the house,” she said. “We notice every time a cop car drives by. When the family put the light up in the window, we noticed instantly. … It hasn’t gone away for us.”

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2012 at 8:05 am and is filed under Missing Persons, Vermont. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.