Exactly How A detective DNA that is used Technology Identify A Teenage Girl’s Killer, 50 Years Later
LONGUEUIL, Que. –
WARNING: The details in this article and videos may be disturbing to some viewers
In 1975, 16-year-old Sharron Prior was kidnapped in Montreal after leaving home to meet her friends at a local pizzeria.
In 1975, 16-year-old Sharron Prior was kidnapped in Montreal after leaving home to meet her friends at a local pizzeria. (Supplied photo)
Three days later, she was found in a wooded area just outside Montreal. She had been tied up, raped and beaten to death.
“Sharron was a lively little girl. The community of Pointe-Saint-Charles liked her a lot, and she had a lot of friends,” said Eric Racicot, a sergeant that is detective Longueuil’s authorities division, in a job interview with CTV W5.
Racicot obtained the actual truth in December 2021. He had been the investigator that is 14th try to crack the case police had been investigating for 48 years. By the right time it attained their arms, 120 candidates was recognized.
Racicot had been determined to resolve the actual situation by using breakthroughs in DNA Technology.
“The more time that passed, the more techniques and more refined that DNA collection techniques and identification recovery became,” he stated.
He provided a few products of Sharron’s clothes through the criminal activity world, including a set of shorts to a lab that focuses primarily on discovering DNA. That test ended up being when compared to examples in a database that is genealogical. That ultimately gave Racicot a last name for the Investigation.
“The more time that passed, the more techniques and more refined that DNA collection techniques and identification recovery became,” Det. Eric Racicot told W5.
“Since 1975, no one had ever mentioned this name,” said Racicot. “And I thought ‘that’s why we’ve been chasing a ghost all this time.’”
He wasn’t the only one chasing a ghost Sharron’s that is— mom siblings was looking her killer for many years, searching for brands and details in phone guides and browsing details they thought might cause them to the killer.
“It’s the fight of my life. I just want the answers. I want to know who did this,” Sharron’s mom, Yvonne Before, told CTV W5.
Det. Racicot ultimately traced the suspect’s name that is last an American citizen, the late Franklin Maywood Romine of Putnam County, West Virginia. He was 28 at the time of Prior’s death and started his criminal career at the age of 11.
Racicot said Romine’s criminal record spans from 1955 to 1974 and includes breaking and entering, grand larceny, multiple prison breaks, impaired driving, hit-and-run and rape. The life-long criminal crossed the border into Canada times that are many passed away in 1982 for the Verdun neighbor hood of Montreal during the age 36.
Racicot stayed steadfast within his objective to provide Prior’s family members answers that are definitive requested an exhumation on Romine’s body in West Virginia.
“We hope that the DNA we collect… will allow us to prove once and for all he’s responsible for Sharron Prior’s murder,” he said.
In May 2023, Racicot watched with anticipation as his suspect’s that is main steel had been dug out of the floor. A biologist removed five limbs from where to DNA.(* that is extract Those DNA samples were then brought to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Montreal and analyzed.
Sitting with Sharron Prior’s mom, Yvonne, and twin sisters, Moreen and Doreen, Racicot shared the news they had been waiting for for more than 40 years he told the women— they had finally found the murderer they’d been searching for. “The profile from the bones is a full match with the one from the crime scene that belongs to the murderer. So it’s him, it’s really him without any doubt.”
“It’s the fight of my life. I just want the answers. I want to know who did this,” stated Sharron’s mom, Yvonne past (seated).
Sharron’s mommy, Yvonne past, had never ever quit wish that her daughter’s murderer will be found.
“Forty-eight years,” she stated. “It was always on my mind. Who killed Sharron? Who killed her? They got him.”
The W5/Noovo one-hour documentary shows spectacular accessibility most of the essential members and proof in Sharron Prior’s situation. You can view the documentary within our movie member on top of this post or on W5’s authoritative YouTube station, where reporter Marie-Christine Bergeron investigates the search that is dogged solutions for the loss of the 16-year-old
