Canadian police remedy 1975 homicide of teenager Sharron Prior because of DNA methods

Police in Canada say they’ve recognized the person who raped and murdered a 16-year-old lady in 1975.

Sharron Prior had been on her approach to meet buddies at a pizza restaurant close to her Montreal residence when she disappeared.

Her physique was discovered three days later in woodland in Longueuil on Montreal’s South Shore however, regardless of investigating greater than 100 suspects over time, police by no means made any arrests.

This week, nonetheless, they stated they’re 100% sure that Sharron was murdered by Franklin Maywood Romine.

Romine was residing in Montreal on the time of Sharron’s dying and had an extended felony document, together with a rape conviction in 1974.

He matched the outline of a suspect and his automobile matched tyre tracks discovered close to Sharron’s physique.

Sharron’s youthful sister Doreen stated: “The solving of Sharron’s case will never bring Sharron back, but knowing that her killer is no longer on this earth and cannot kill anymore brings us to somewhat of a closure.”

DNA was discovered on the scene in 1975 nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient to be examined or utilized in court docket.

It was saved protected, nonetheless, within the hope that in the future higher know-how would imply it may very well be used to search out Sharron’s killer.

The samples had been despatched to a lab in West Virginia in 2019 and had been later matched to Romine’s kinfolk utilizing genealogical web sites.

Romine died in 1982 in mysterious circumstances, however DNA from his brothers was an in depth match to the samples discovered close to Sharron’s physique.

Earlier this month, police exhumed Romine’s physique from a West Virginia cemetery and located that his DNA was a match.

Mother acquired the news ‘with many feelings’

Yvonne Prior, Sharron’s mom, is in her 80s and has spent her life attempting to maintain her daughter’s homicide on the news agenda within the hope that the killer could be discovered.

Police stated she and different members of the family had been instantly advised the news in a non-public assembly “with many emotions”.

Hope to households of victims trying to find solutions

They added that the know-how used to unravel Sharron’s case “will undoubtedly give hope to dozens and dozens of families of victims who are still today searching for answers”.

“Although this technique is not applicable to all unresolved cases, (police) undertake not to neglect any leads and to use all the tools made available to them in order to allow the families and loved ones of victims of these murders to get the answers they need.”