BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – By some accounts, he was a hard worker, an outgoing guy and a good father. By others, Brian L. Rooney was a ne’er-do-well with numerous brushes with the law – none of them for violent crimes.

Rooney, 36, the chief suspect in the disappearance and death of University of Vermont senior Michelle Gardner-Quinn, remained jailed without bail Saturday on sex charges unrelated to her case.

Police believe Rooney – the last person seen with the 21-year-old Arlington, Va., woman – may have been responsible for her death. But they have yet to make a case against him, despite at least one in-person interview with him, searches of two houses and his car and a surveillance videotape that shows him walking up Main Street alongside Gardner-Quinn moments before she vanished Oct. 7. Gardner-Quinn’s body turned up Friday on the edge of a rocky ravine in Richmond.

Through court records and interviews, a picture emerged of a construction worker and father of three daughters who had been arrested several times for driving without a license and once for disorderly conduct. He has also had arrests for leaving the scene of an accident and burglary, according to Caledonia County State’s Attorney Bob Butterfield, who did not know the ultimate disposition of those charges Saturday.

“At one time, every lawyer in this office had a case with him,” Butterfield said.

His former mother-in-law, who lives in Craftsbury but wouldn’t give her name, said she didn’t want to talk about him – before hanging up.

His stepfather said Saturday he doubts Rooney was involved in Gardner-Quinn’s disappearance. “We’ve got all the faith in the world in him,” said Ronald Skinner, whose Richmond home was searched Tuesday as part of the investigation. “It’s just unimaginable that they suspect him of something like this. He’s so good with his kids, and I just know he wouldn’t do this to someone else’s.”

Jason Collier, 40, a former co-worker who has known Rooney for 20 years, had nothing but kind words for him.

“I’ve always known him to be a really good guy. He’s outgoing, kind of funny, a good people person, that’s the way I’ve always taken him,” said Collier, who said he hadn’t seen Rooney in a couple of years.

Told of the charges against Rooney, he said: “It doesn’t sound like him.”

John Barton, owner of Walt’s Game Room, in Winooski, said Rooney was a regular customer and always pleasant to deal with. Rooney often stayed at a friend’s house across the street, he said.

“Just a normal kind of guy,” said Barton. “He was always polite when he came in. He’d play pool with his dad. Most of the time, he’d grab a (soft) drink or a pack of smokes.”

But one night this week, Barton noticed cuts on Rooney’s hands.

“He popped in to get a soda. I asked him what the deal was with the FBI and police and everything going around. He said he was the guy who had lent the missing girl his cell phone. He basically said “I was walking up the street with her and when I got halfway up she went one way and I went the other and I don’t remember anything after that.”‘