ESSEX, Vt. -
For the first time, we're getting a look behind the investigation into the disappearance of Bill and Lorraine Currier in Essex, Vermont.
For more than a year the case was a mystery. And then it was brought to a dramatic conclusion when a serial killer was blamed for their deaths.
We sat down with police who opened up, the until now, confidential case files.
There are binders after binders, eleven in total. They detail all the steps police took to find out what happened to the Curriers. From phone records to interviews even tips from psychics.
We look into what the binders don't reveal: the frustration and concern all this work would never solve the case.
"Nothing about this case has been simple or straight forwarded," says Lieutenant George Murtie, a detective with the Essex Police Department.
It was a crime scene with a broken door, cut phone line, and no sign of the victims. What had happened to the Curriers inside their Essex home in June 2011?
The man charged with finding out was Murtie.
"What did you think had happened at that point?" asked FOX44/ABC22.
"There were several possibilities, all of which we try to keep an open mind to," says Murtie.
From a murder-suicide to a missing persons case. Within weeks, Murtie says he focused on one theory, someone had abducted the Curriers and the couple was probably not alive.
That still left huge questions.
"Who did it? Why it happened? Is it a friend, a relative, an acquaintance or a complete stranger?" says Murtie.
Over months, a team of dozens of officers dwindled to a just few and then just Murtie assigned to the case. There were some 300 leads to track down.
"Did anything you find help with the investigation?" asked FOX44/ABC22.
"No," says Murtie.
Nearly a year had gone by when everything changed in April 2012.
"I had a somewhat frustrating day dealing with this investigation and when I got home from work, I think it was sometime after dinner time I said to my wife, I don't think we're ever going to solve this case and 15 minutes later I get a call from an FBI agent who tells me this guy Israel Keyes just confessed to murdering the Curriers in Anchorage, Alaska," says Murtie.
Keyes was jailed in Alaska for murder charges in that state. That's where he confessed to a cross-country and calculated killing spree.
"And what's your reaction?" asked FOX44/ABC22.
"I'm shocked," says Murtie.
Moments after the phone call from Alaska, Murtie headed to the home where Keyes said he had murdered the Curriers and left their bodies. Even though the house had recently been torn down, Murtie remembered it.
"Were there any details (Keyes) provided that you almost instantly thought, he's probably telling the truth?" asked FOX44/ABC22.
"Yeah, primarily when he said the bottom had stone on it," says Murtie.
Soon police decided it was time for another update to the Curriers' families.
"These are really nice people that we, all the investigators that dealt with the family became attached to," says Murtie.
After a year of mystery, the families finally heard who had killed Bill and Lorraine and how.
"It was an incredibly hard meeting but it's such a wonderful family. They took the information the best that anyone could," says Murtie.
Though it may never fully answer the question, why.
It was only after that, in December, Keyes committed suicide and then everyone found out about him and what he had done to the Curriers.
Now the case is not completely closed.
That's because the bodies of Bill and Lorraine have not been found and police say there's always the chance Israel Keyes was not telling the truth about what happened and someone else might be involved.
