WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
Sharron Prior, a Montreal teen who was found dead in 1975, was raped and killed by Franklin Romine, an American from West Virginia, investigators said on Tuesday.
The cold case, which had puzzled detectives for 48 years, was solved thanks to new DNA testing techniques and the persistence of Prior’s family, who kept fighting to keep her death from being forgotten.
Prior’s death had gone unsolved since she disappeared after setting out to meet friends at a pizza parlor near her home in Montreal’s Pointe-St-Charles neighbourhood.
Her body was found three days later in a wooded area in Longueuil.
Romine was living in Montreal when he killed Sharron. He had a long criminal record and encounters with law enforcement in Montreal and West Virginia but was not initially a suspect in her death. He died in 1982 at the age of 36.
He matched the description of a suspect and his car matched tire tracks that were found at the scene where Sharron’s body was recovered.
But ultimately, it was DNA evidence found on a man’s shirt used to restrain Sharron that confirmed him as the killer.
In 1975, the amount of DNA gathered at the scene was insufficient to be tested with the technology of that time. The DNA was kept over the years in the hope that it would someday be used to find a match for a suspect.
The samples were sent to a laboratory in West Virginia in 2019 and later matched to Romine’s relatives using data from genealogical websites.
Police exhumed his body earlier this month to test his DNA and confirmed on Tuesday that the DNA found at the scene corresponded 100 per cent to Romine’s.
Support is available for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.