Sharron Prior's Case: How DNA Solved 5-Decade-Long Mystery

The police have solved one of Canada's well-known unsolved crimes by exhuming the body of a convicted rapist from West Virginia who had passed away in 1982.

They were able to match his DNA to the murder scene of Sharron Prior, a 16-year-old girl who was abducted in 1975 while she was heading to meet her friends for pizza in Montreal. After her abduction, she was found dead in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada, having been subjected to sexual assault and severe physical assault.

Despite the police investigating numerous potential suspects, the identity of the person responsible for her death has remained a mystery for almost half a century.

According to the Longueuil police, they are now completely certain that they have unraveled the enigma of who was responsible for Sharron Prior's murder.

Background

Sharron Prior was scheduled to meet with her friends at a restaurant located on Wellington St. in Pointe-St-Charles in Montreal, Canada on March 29, 1975, but she did not arrive.

On April 1 of the same year, her body was discovered in Longueuil in Quebec. An autopsy revealed that she had been subjected to rape, severe physical assault, particularly on her face, and had eventually suffocated to death in her own blood.

As a part of their investigation, the Longueuil police gathered three DNA samples from the crime scene and sent them to a laboratory for analysis. These samples were later compared to DNA samples collected from numerous potential suspects in the case.

However, upon receiving the results, it was determined that the DNA did not match any of the suspects, and as a result, nobody was apprehended for the murder of Sharron.

Franklin Romine

According to the law enforcement records shared with Eyewitness News, Romine was born in Huntington in West Virginia, United States in 1946 and had a criminal history that began during his childhood. He made his first attempt to escape from the West Virginia Penitentiary in 1964 when he was 18 years old.

In February 1974, the Parkersburg Police reported that he had broken into a house and sexually assaulted a woman inside her apartment situated on the southside of the city.

An Associated Press article stated that he was released on a $2,500 bond two months later and fled to Canada. Sharron Prior was raped and murdered a year after he entered Canada.

Romine was apprehended in late 1975 in Canada and subsequently extradited to West Virginia. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault and received a prison sentence of five years. Following his release, he returned to Canada, where he died in 1982.

In early May, the body of Franklin Romine was exhumed from a cemetery located in West Virginia for DNA testing with the aim of verifying his connection to the crime. Romine, who was born in 1946 in Huntington, West Virginia's second biggest city, passed away at the age of 36 in Verdun, Montreal, under perplexing circumstances in 1982.

Sharon's Death Solved

Despite the authorities investigating numerous potential suspects, the identity of Sharron Prior's murderer had remained a mystery for around 50 years. However, similar to many other cases in recent times, the progress in DNA testing and genetic analysis enabled investigators to make a breakthrough.

By using the DNA extracted from Prior's body, experts were able to generate a family tree, which led detectives to the last name of Romine. They concluded that a fugitive by the name of Franklin Romine was present in Canada during the time of Prior's demise and obtained DNA samples from his surviving siblings.

Using the DNA samples obtained from Romine's surviving siblings, the investigators were led to exhume Romine's body, despite opposition from his family. The result of the DNA analysis conducted on his remains was a complete match.

If Sharron were still alive she would be 64.

“We are still grieving the loss of our daughter and sister who was savagely murdered,” Prior’s sister Maureen said.

References:

Montreal teen’s killer identified after 48 years using DNA evidence

DNA testing confirms West Virginia man raped, killed Canadian teen in 1975

Killer’s Body Dug Up in West Virginian to Solve 1975 Murder of Teen