Body of suspect in 1975 Montreal teen killing exhumed in West Virginia
CBC
WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
The body of a suspect in the unsolved 1975 Montreal killing of 16-year-old Sharron Prior has been exhumed in West Virginia after DNA samples from the crime scene were matched to his family name.
Franklin Romine, an American from West Virginia, lived in Montreal at the time of the murder and is the primary suspect in the case.
Prior's mother, Yvonne Prior, never stopped looking for answers over the last 48 years, and the family's legal counsel Marc Bellemare said "it must be the best day she had in the last half century."
Prior was last seen March 29, 1975 when she left her family home in Pointe-Saint-Charles to meet up with friends at a nearby pizza parlour. She never showed up. Her body was found three days later in Longueuil.
Autopsies revealed she had been raped and beaten to death. A man's T-shirt had been used to restrain her, and tire tracks were found at the crime scene.
Around the same time Prior disappeared, a 22-year-old woman was the victim of an attempted kidnapping at knife-point on the same street where Prior was last seen. The woman described her assailant as a tall 28-year-old English-speaking white male with blue eyes, brown hair and a mustache.
During court proceedings in West Virginia to have Romine's body exhumed, the Longueuil Police detective on the case, Éric Racicot, testified last month that DNA samples from the crime scene, including the T-shirt, had been sent to a laboratory in the state in 2019.
In June 2022, the DNA samples sent to Quebec's forensic laboratory for comparison found a match with the family name Romine.
Racicot said local databases showed Franklin Romine had two addresses in Montreal and Longueuil in the '70s. Though Romine had three brothers, none of them had lived in Montreal. A vehicle registered under Romine's name in Montreal was compatible with tire tracks found at the crime scene.
Romine had an extensive American criminal record and had encounters with Montreal police, said Racicot.
In December 2022, Longueuil police received DNA samples from Romine's two living brothers, who consensually gave them to West Virginia police. Both brothers said they believed their brother had committed the murder, testified Racicot.
Family photos showed Romine as a tall man with reddish-brown hair and a mustache, said Racicot.
Romine died in Canada in the early '80s and was buried in West Virginia, said police.
After walking a few laps around the shop, Maria Castagna picks up a glass ornament in the form of a pink, sparkly ice cream cone and smiles widely.
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham says he has much unfinished work from his first term in office, as he prepares to make his pitch to voters ahead of the 2026 election.
Moving to Canada from Singapore meant losing close social connections for Iris Akbar, but Akbar says the gift was in finding an affirming space with friends that became like family.
Women and children staying at Regina Transition House now have access to Santa’s workshop — a safe space where mothers can choose Christmas gifts for their children.
A man from Powell River, B.C., is thankful to be alive after a stranger helped him while he was choking at a restaurant during a visit to Whistler.
When it comes to Hamilton readers' favourite library books of 2025, romance and mysteries are in close competition.
From the Detroit Lions losing to Apple iPhones that spontaneously update, Windsorites had things that bugged them this year.
Calgary emergency rooms are “in a state of critical overcapacity” ahead of the anticipated peak of flu season — and to cope with the surge and wait-room crowding, officials are urging doctors to speed up their decisions on whether to admit patients, according to a memo obtained by CBC News.
Northern Ontario's highway system needs improvements in order to make travel safer, a highway safety advocate said.
Hundreds of thousands of used tires are piling up across Ontario as some companies responsible for tire recycling have stopped processing tires amid reduced provincial recycling regulations for tire producers, industry experts say.
People in Guelph facing homelessness will soon have a new place to go during the day.
Islanders are reminded to plan their rides ahead of holiday festivities if they plan on drinking alcohol or using cannabis.
Even before Gwen Healey Akearok began her new role as Nunavut’s Minister of Family Services, she was tuning into the Office of the Auditor General’s (OAG) hearings on the state of the Family Services department.