On March 29, 1975, Sharron Prior, a 16-year-old girl, was brutally raped and murdered in Longueuil. Almost half a century later, the mystery of his murder is about to be solved.
A lengthy report released by ABC’s Eyewitness News program on Friday reveals in great detail the elements that allowed Longueuil police to find the alleged killer after more than 48 years.
On that fateful day, Sharron had left his home in the Pointe-Saint-Charles sector of Montreal to meet friends at the restaurant. She never surrendered.
Sébastien St-Jean / Agency QMI
Three days later, his battered body was discovered in a field in Longueuil. Police then concluded that the teenager had been raped and then beaten to death.
After decades and hundreds of suspects sighted, advances in analyzing DNA found on a sweater and duct tape used to tie up the victim finally allowed the conclusion last year that the suspect was Franklin Maywood Romine, a West Virginia man.
The suspect has a criminal record in both Montreal and his state of birth, including for beating and raping a woman in Parkersburg. He eventually died at the age of 36 in the Verdun neighborhood of Montreal. His death, unspecified, had been described as “violent”.
Convinced that he was responsible for the murder, Sergeant Éric Racicot of the Longueuil Metropolitan Police Department asked a US court for permission to exhume Romine’s remains buried in West Virginia.
Along with several overwhelming pieces of evidence, including tire and shoe tracks, and a matching description of the suspect, Sergeant Racicot stated that two of Romine’s brothers provided a DNA sample. These turn out to be very similar to the DNA of the wanted suspect.
“We can speculate all day, but we won’t know the truth until we open the tomb and see the remains,” Eric Racicot said in his April 6 lawsuit in court, according to Eyewitness News.
Romine’s brothers, while open to the idea of acknowledging their brother’s guilt, opposed his exhumation. However, Judge Phillip Stowers agreed with the police and authorized the exhumation, which was carried out on May 2. The remains of the body were then returned to Canada by police for analysis and the results could be known in the coming days.
“We want the family to know that we have never abandoned this investigation. We are now very close to finding out the truth for them,” commented SPAL Sergeant Francis Charrette during the exhumation, according to comments transmitted by the WCHS channel.