New DNA evidence has led to the arrest of a 72-year-old man accused of killing his girlfriend more than four decades ago.
Mark Sanfratello was arrested in Chico, California on Saturday in connection with the 1983 disappearance of his then-girlfriend Teresa Peroni. He was indicted on a murder charge Friday after new DNA evidence shed light on the cold case.
He is awaiting extradition to Josephine County, Oregon, the local sheriff’s office said.
Peroni disappeared around July 4, 1983, when she was 27 years old. She was last seen at a party walking into a wooded area with Sanfratello, who was 29 years old. The couple had an argument over Peroni dating someone else shortly before she disappeared, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Peroni’s family says the couple had other arguments, too. Her brother, Russell Neill, told The New York Times their aunt once witnessed Sanfratello become “really furious” with Peroni because she joined a church. Part of the reason Peroni joined the church was to turn her life around after going through a divorce before she met Sanfratello, Neill said.
“She had a lot of hurt and damage done to her but she still remained a loving person,” Neill said of Peroni.
Soon after Peroni disappeared her family reported her missing. The Josephine County Sheriff’s Office considered her disappearance suspicious, but did not have enough evidence to move forward with an indictment.
For 14 years, the case was cold — until a group found a human skull on property nearby where Peroni disappeared, the sheriff’s office said. That skull was sent to the University of North Texas for examination and DNA analysis.
The sheriff’s office reopened the case last year, and investigators sent new DNA to the University of North Texas. There, they confirmed it was Peroni’s skull.
Investigators say they used DNA results and information from the original case to indict Sanfratello on a murder charge.
Sanfratello has a prior criminal record. In 1985, he was charged with two counts of attempted murder, one count of rape and one count of burglary in Yreka, California, according to the NYT. The charges were in connection with the stabbing of Sanfratello’s ex-wife and her 14-year-old daughter.
He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.
In 1999, Sanfratello was also convicted of theft or embezzlement of U.S. property. He was sentenced to two years of probation and had to pay $4,000 in restitution, the NYT reports.
The Independent has contacted Sanfratello’s attorney for comment.
