Longueuil police have just solved a 48-year-old “cold-case” by formally identifying the murderer of Sharron Prior, an abducted teenager whose body was found on a vacant lot in 1975. This is a new technology for increasingly widespread genetic analysis that has made it possible.
Assisted by the Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine Laboratory (LSJML), the investigators of the Longueuil agglomeration police department (SPAL) used “genetic genealogy” to confirm that the murderer was indeed Franklin Romine, a American who died in 1982 at Verdun hospital.
In early May, SPAL confirmed that Romine was considered a suspect in the case, after new evidence surfaced. DNA tests were still to take place, however. The man who died at the age of 36 had a heavy criminal record in Quebec and the United States for burglary and rape, in particular.
The victim, Sharron Prior, had left her home in the Pointe-Saint-Charles neighborhood in southwestern Montreal on the evening of March 29, 1975. She was visiting friends at a pizzeria near her home, but was not never arrived at destination. Three days later, his body was found in a wooded area in Longueuil.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE LONGUEUIL POLICE
Franklin Romine
Very long process
To identify the murderer, the investigators first established “a link between DNA taken from an exhibit, recovered from the crime scene” and that of an American family established in West Virginia. It was two of Romine’s brothers who gave DNA samples to the police.
The authorities then discovered that a member of this family “was living in Montreal at the time of the murder and that he had died in 1982 at the Verdun hospital”. The body of the man, however, buried in a cemetery of his community of origin in West Virginia, in the United States.
A warrant was therefore obtained after legal proceedings spread over several months to proceed with the “exhumation” of the body of Franklin Romine in a cemetery in Putnam County, which was finally done on May 2. A video released Tuesday by the SPAL also shows investigators on the spot, when a mechanical shovel carries out the said exhumation.
At the end of this delicate operation, a DNA sample was taken from the remains of the suspect, which was then compared to the DNA that had initially been found at the crime scene. Result: “these biological expertise confirmed 100% that Franklin Romine, born on April 2, 1946, was indeed the killer that the police had been trying to identify for almost 5 decades”, indicates the SPAL in a press release.
As Franklin Romine is now deceased, “this confirmation of identity closes this cold-case and will not lead to any charges in Canadian courts”, specifies however the SPAL.
The Longueuil police say the news was quickly communicated to members of the Sharron Prior family “and more particularly to Sharron’s mother, Yvonne Prior, who had multiplied outings over the years to find her daughter’s murderer”. A meeting “imprinted with a lot of emotions” was also held in the last few days with Mme Priority.
Modern technology, but…
In the month of February, The Press devoted an entire dossier to genetic genealogy, a technique that allows a suspect’s DNA to be matched against the millions of DNA profiles found in many genealogy databases maintained by people who are increasingly plus their online family tree.
According to the SPAL, this method “will undoubtedly give hope to dozens and dozens of families of victims who are still today in search of answers”.
“Although this technique is not applicable to all unresolved cases, the SPAL and its partners 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 the victims to these murders to obtain the answers so desired”, also hammered the police force.
In Quebec, Emmanuel Milot, professor of genetics and forensic science at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, had however warned that this innovative method should be supervised. “If we are talking about a very serious crime, I think the population will understand and agree. But what happens in the case of a less serious crime? Are we gonna do it? he wondered.