Canadian police says that they finally solved one of the highest – profile cold case in Quebec history. This rape and murder incident happened in 1975, of a 16-year-old girl, to a West Virginia man who died more than 40 years ago.
According to the Police in Longueuli Quebec, the DNA evidence is 100% certain that teenager Sharron Prior was murdered by Franklin Maywood Romine in the Montreal suburb.
Romine was born in 1946 and died in 1982, at the age of 36 in Verdun, Montreal. The body was exhumed from the West Virginia cemetery for DNA testing hoping to confirm his link to the crime, in early May under mysterious circumstances
The DNA of Romine, matching a witness’s physical description of the suspect. Having a long criminal history, matches a sample found at the crime scene.
The rape and killing were not closed, since she disappeared on 29th March 1975. After meeting her friends at a pizza corner, in Montreal’s Pointe-St-Charles neighborhood.
Three days later in a wooded area in Longueuil, on Montreal’s South shore, her body was found.
Over the years, law enforcement investigates more than 100 suspects, but never made any arrest. Yvonne Prior, the victim’s mother, who is now elderly, lives in Canada, was always trying to find the killer of her daughter’s murder.
According to WCHS-TV of Charleston West Virginia. Until last year, Romine’s name didn’t come under any investigations.
When Longueuil police started investigating his criminal history, they came across a comprehensive history of violence and attempts by Romine to avoid law enforcement by moving between West Virginia and Canada.
WCHS records indicates that, Romine attempted escape from the West Virginia penitentiary in 1964, later escaped in 1967. Romine already had a Canadian rap sheet, two years after.
According to an Associated press story from the times, Romine was arrested for breaking into a house and raping a woman in Parkersburg West Virginia, in 1974. He was released on a $2,500 bond, two months after he fled to Canada.
Canadian border officials captured Romine and extradited back to West Virginia, Months after Prior’s murder in 1975. For sexual assault he was sentenced 5 to 10 years in prison.
In 1982, he died in Canada, shortly after his release. When Romine’s body was exhumed, local prosecutor Mark Sorsaia said, “some things are worse than death- to lose a child like that, for a mom, for a family, to know that your child died that way.
