Sharron Prior cold case: Franklin Romine named murderer in 1975 Quebec murder of teenager

Canadian police said on Tuesday they had solved one of the most high-profile cold cases in Quebec history, linking the 1975 rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl to a West Virginia man who died there. is over 40 years old.

Police in Longueuil, Quebec, said DNA evidence gave them 100% certainty that Franklin Maywood Romine murdered teenager Sharron Prior in suburban Montreal.

The body of Romine, who was born in 1946 in Huntington, West Virginia’s second largest city and died in 1982 at the age of 36 in Verdun, Montreal under mysterious circumstances, was exhumed from a cemetery in West Virginia in early May for DNA testing to confirm his connection to the crime.

Longueuil police say DNA from Romine – who had a long criminal history – matches a sample found at the murder scene. He also matched the physical description of the suspect given by a witness.

Prior’s rape and murder had remained unsolved since she disappeared on March 29, 1975, after leaving to meet friends at a pizzeria near her home in Montreal’s Pointe-St-Charles neighborhood.

His body was found three days later in a wooded area of ​​Longueuil, on the South Shore of Montreal.

“Solving Sharron’s case will never bring Sharron back. But knowing that his killer is no longer on this Earth and will not kill again, brings us to a sort of closure,” Prior’s sister Doreen said Tuesday, according to CTV News.

Law enforcement has investigated more than 100 suspects over the years, but never made any arrests. Yvonne Prior, the teenager’s mother, is now in her 80s, still lives in Canada and has spent her life searching for her daughter’s killer.

Romine’s name only appeared in the investigation last year, according to WCHS-TV of Charleston, West Virginia. When Longueuil police said they began checking criminal records, they discovered extensive history of violence and attempts by Romine to evade law enforcement while traveling between West Virginia and the Canada.

Romine first attempted to escape from West Virginia Penitentiary in 1964, then escaped in 1967, according to records obtained by WCHS. Two years later, Romine already had a Canadian rap sheet.

In 1974, he was arrested for breaking into a house and raping a woman in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He was released on $2,500 bail two months later and fled to Canada, according to an Associated Press report at the time.

Just months after Prior’s murder in 1975, Romine was captured by Canadian border agents and extradited to West Virginia, where he was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison for sexual assault in the Parkersburg case.

He died in Canada in 1982, shortly after his release, although authorities say they have been unable to find a death certificate detailing the circumstances leading to his death. His body was returned to his mother in West Virginia, where his family buried him in Putnam County, Pine Grove Cemetery in West Virginia.

Putnam County District Attorney Mark Sorsaia told CBS affiliate WOWK-TV earlier this month that he filed a legal motion with the court seeking approval for the exhumation.

Sorsaia called the crime against Prior “the most evil element of the human race”.

“It’s a combination of the most evil element of the human race, contacting the most innocent element of the human race – a child,” he told WCHS. “Some things are worse than death – losing a child like this, for a family, for a mom. Knowing that your child died this way.”

On Tuesday, Prior’s family thanked police for the “miracle of science” that finally identified the killer, CTV News reported.

“You may never have returned to our house or to Congregation Street this weekend, but you never left our hearts and you never will,” Sharron’s sister, Moreen, said.