Quebec police identify killer in 1975 cold case murder of Sharron Prior

Montreal−area police said Tuesday that advances in DNA technology allowed them to solve one of the highest−profile cold cases in Quebec history.

Investigators in Longueuil, Que., said DNA evidence establishes with certainty that Franklin Maywood Romine raped and murdered 16−year−old Sharron Prior in 1975.

"Today we can confirm … that Franklin Romine is 100 per cent responsible for the death of Sharron Prior," Chief Insp. Pierre Duquette told reporters.

The body of Romine — a career criminal who died in 1982 at the age of 36 — was exhumed from a West Virginia cemetery in early May for DNA testing aimed at confirming his suspected link to the crime.

Duquette said Romine’s DNA matches a sample found at the murder scene, adding that the man’s appearance also corresponds with a witness’s physical description of the suspect. As well, the officer said Romine’s car was "compatible" with the tire tracks at the site where police found Prior’s body 48 years ago.

The rape and killing of Prior had gone unsolved since she disappeared on March 29, 1975, after setting out to meet friends at a pizza parlour near her home in Montreal’s Pointe−St−Charles neighbourhood. Her body was found three days later in a wooded area in Longueuil.

Prior’s sister, Doreen, attended the news conference Tuesday and said the family is relieved.

"The solving of Sharron’s case will not bring Sharron back, but knowing that her killer is no longer on the earth and cannot kill again gives us a sort of closure."

Investigators said DNA had been gathered from Prior’s clothing and from a shirt used to restrain her, but they said the sample collected was never sufficient for analysis — until recently. Advances in DNA technology allowed police to obtain an amplified specimen of the DNA, enough to compare it to samples in a database containing thousands of profiles of people identified by their family names. That database led police to the Romine family name.

Police analyzed Y chromosome DNA — passed down almost unchanged from father to son — to identify a family line, and they matched the sample to four brothers in West Virginia.

"The resolution of this cold case is based on new investigative techniques but also on advances in forensic biology," Longueuil police Det. Eric Racicot told reporters. "These are new tools that we didn’t have a few years ago and it’s a powerful one."

Romine, whose criminal record began when he was a child, was on the run from the law in West Virginia at the time of Prior’s death. On parole since 1973, he was facing new charges of breaking and entering and rape. He fled to Montreal, a city he had visited on at least two earlier occasions.

Around seven months after Prior’s murder, Romine was arrested by Montreal police and extradited to the United States. But by 1982, he was back in the city. He died there, but his body was buried in West Virginia.