Global Courant 2023-05-24 05:18:24
WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced sexual assault or know someone who has been affected by it.
Sharron Prior, a Montreal teen who was found dead in 1975, was raped and murdered by West Virginia American Franklin Romine, investigators said 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 fought to keep her death from being forgotten.
“Solving Sharron’s case will never bring Sharron back,” Doreen Prior, one of Sharron’s younger sisters, said at a press conference, “but knowing that her killer is no longer on this earth and can’t kill anymore brings us to a kind of closure. .”
Sharron Prior was last seen on March 29, 1975. The body of a suspect in her murder investigation was exhumed in West Virginia in early May. (CBC)
Prior’s murder had gone unsolved since she disappeared after en route to meet friends at a pizzeria near her home in Montreal’s Pointe-St-Charles neighborhood.
Her body was found three days later in a wooded area in Longueuil, on Montreal’s south coast.
Romine was living in Montreal at the time. He had a long criminal record and encounters with law enforcement in Montreal and West Virginia, including at least one rape conviction, but was not initially a suspect in her death. He died in 1982 at the age of 36.
He matched a suspect’s description and his car matched tire tracks found where Sharron’s body was recovered.
In the end, DNA evidence found on a man’s shirt used to restrain Sharron confirmed him as the killer.
LOOK | Sharron Prior’s sisters express their gratitude:
Montreal teen whose 1975 murder just solved can now ‘really rest in peace,’ sister says
Moreen and Doreen Prior say their older sister, Sharron Prior, can finally rest in peace after the police solve the 1975 cold case.
In 1975, the amount of DNA collected at the scene was insufficient to be tested or used in court, but it was kept over the years in the hope that it could one day be used to provide a match for a suspect found as technology improved.
The samples were sent to a lab in West Virginia in 2019 and later linked to Romine’s relatives using data from genealogy websites.
After police matched the crime scene DNA to the Romine family of West Virginia, investigators met with Romine’s brothers to collect their DNA. They determined that theirs almost matched the genetic material found at the crime scene.
Police then exhumed Romine’s body earlier this month and tested his DNA against DNA left at the crime scene.
Sarah Bourgoin, the director of the biology and DNA division at Quebec’s national forensic laboratory, said getting a full genetic profile from Romine’s bones was a difficult task.
“Luckily it worked here,” she said. “We were able to establish a genetic profile by comparing it to the unknown profile in Sharron Prior’s case. We noted that it was identical, confirming that it was indeed Franklin Romine who put his DNA at the scene. left behind.”
Bourgoin said advances in DNA testing technology and growing databases provide powerful tools for law enforcement to solve cold cases.
“We are hopeful that there are many things we can solve or at least find new leads with the tools we have,” she said. “Those cases can have a happy ending, like Sharron Prior’s.”
Family never gave up
Longueuil Police, the agency investigating Sharron’s death, said the family’s dogged pursuit of justice was a key factor in finding the killer.
Prior’s two younger sisters, Doreen and Moreen, got emotional when they described Sharron at a press conference on Tuesday.
Sharron was a kind, warm-hearted young girl who dreamed of becoming a vet, the sisters said.
“She was a beautiful young lady with a heart of gold,” Doreen said.
When she went missing – over Easter weekend – the family was distraught. Decades later, they are still scarred by the violence and tragedy of her death, the sisters said. But they thanked the people of Pointe-Saint-Charles for their support over the years as they struggled with her death and all the unanswered questions about the killer’s identity.
“We will always be your mother, your little brother and sisters who sat there at that window that Easter weekend hoping to see you walk home,” Moreen said.
“Maybe you never came back to our home on Congregation Street that weekend. But you never left our hearts and you never will. We love you Sharron. May you truly rest in peace now.”
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.
