Global Courant 2023-05-08 04:01:58
WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced sexual assault or know someone who has been affected by it.
The body of a suspect in the unsolved 1975 murder of 16-year-old Sharron Prior in Montreal has been exhumed in West Virginia after DNA samples from the crime scene were linked to his last name.
Franklin Romine, an American from West Virginia, was living in Montreal at the time of the murder and is the prime suspect in the case.
Prior’s mother, Yvonne Prior, has never stopped searching for answers for the last 48 years, and the family’s legal adviser, Marc Bellemare, said: “This has got to be the best day she’s had in the last half century .”
Prior was last seen on March 29, 1975, leaving her childhood home in Pointe-Saint-Charles to meet up with friends at a nearby pizzeria. She never showed up. Her body was found three days later in Longueuil.
Prior’s body was found on April 1, 1975 in Longueil. (CBC)
Autopsies revealed she had been raped and beaten to death. A man’s T-shirt had been used to restrain her and tire tracks were found at the crime scene.
Around the same time Prior disappeared, a 22-year-old woman was the victim of an attempted kidnapping at knifepoint on the same street Prior was last seen. The woman described her attacker as a tall 28-year-old English-speaking white man with blue eyes, brown hair and a moustache.
DNA testing found a match
During the day legal proceedings in West Virginia To have Romine’s body exhumed, Longueuil police detective Éric Racicot testified last month that DNA samples from the crime scene, including the T-shirt, were sent to a lab in the state in 2019.
In June 2022, DNA samples sent to the Quebec forensics lab for comparison found a match to the Romine family name.
Racicot said local databases showed Franklin Romine had two addresses in Montreal and Longueuil in the 1970s. Although Romine had three brothers, none of them had lived in Montreal. A vehicle registered under Romine’s name in Montreal was compatible with tire tracks found at the crime scene.
Romine had an extensive U.S. criminal record and had encounters with Montreal police, Racicot said.
Yvonne Prior holds a missing poster of her daughter Sharron, who was found dead in Longueuil 48 years ago. (CBC)
In December 2022, the Longueuil Police Department received DNA samples from Romine’s brothers, which they gave to the West Virginia Police Department by mutual consent. Both brothers said they believed their brother committed the murder, Racicot testified.
Family photos showed Romine as a tall man with auburn hair and a mustache, Racicot said.
Romine died in Canada in the early 1980s and was buried in West Virginia, police said.
“We have very strong reasons to believe that Mr. Romine is the suspect in this case since he was living in Montreal when the crime took place,” said Sgt. Francis Charette of the Longueil police.
“He also matched the description that the witness gave us and (had) an extensive criminal record.”
The results comparing the DNA found at the crime scene and the exhumed remains will take up to three weeks to be released.
“We want the family to know that we have never given up and that we are so close to answers,” said Charette.
New hope for cold cases
Stephane Luce’s mother was murdered and he never got answers, leading him to found the group Meurtre et disparitions irrésolues du Québec, which stands up for the loved ones of missing and murdered people.
He says Prior’s case gives him new hope for DNA testing as a tool to solve cold cases, as it was one of the most well-known cold cases in the county and has now been linked to an American man.
“It’s unbelievable. Well, now we actually have to believe it because it’s right before our eyes,” he said.
“With the profile they’ve been given on Sharron’s case, I can understand that they might be able to get results with so few details. This gives me hope personally. It’s the way to give hope to a lot of people.”
Sharron Prior was last seen on March 29, 1975. (CBC)
Bellemare said he kept in touch with Prior’s mother for decades and witnessed the nightmare she had to go through. Now he hopes she can find some peace.
“If you kill someone, if you hurt someone, we’ll find you. That’s the message of this case,” he said.
“We can find on the clothes, on the floor, on the body with the DNA profile — we can find the killer with the DNA profile, even if the killer is dead, as in this case.”
LOOK | The police make new discoveries about the case in 2004:
Cold Cases: Sharron Prior, Montreal (1975)
In 2004, police search for new clues in the disappearance and murder of a 16-year-old Montreal teen.
There is support for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. This gives you access to crisis lines and local emergency services Canadian government website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you are in immediate danger or have concerns for your safety or that of others around you, call 911.
