More than 40 years after a 27-year-old woman was last seen attending a party with her boyfriend in Oregon, he has been arrested for her murder.
Police recently arrested Mark Sanfratello, 72, four decades after his girlfriend Teresa Peroni disappeared, according to the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office.
Peroni was last seen with Sanfratello, then 29 years old, walking into the woods while attending a party in early July 1983. The pair left the party following an argument over whether Peroni was romantically involved with someone else, according to a National Missing and Unidentified Persons System entry.
Sanfratello was also “really furious with her” for joining a church, her brother, Russell Neill told the New York Times. She joined a church after getting a divorce, he told the outlet. She met Sanfratello shortly after the divorce.
After the pair vanished into the woods, Peroni was never heard from again.
Peroni’s family reported her missing, leading to an investigation in which authorities found her “disappearance to be suspicious in nature,” the sheriff’s office said. However, there wasn’t enough probable cause to prosecute.
Fourteen years after Peroni went missing, authorities found a human skull on a nearby property; a cadaver dog search uncovered no other human remains in the area. The skull was sent for DNA testing, but was not matched at the time.
Authorities then reopened the case in February 2024. Investigators then began looking into individuals who had knowledge of the original investigation. They collected more DNA and determined the skull belonged to Peroni, the sheriff’s office said.
In June, a Josephine County grand jury indicted Sanfratello on the charge of murder. Authorities then found him in Chico, California and took him into custody before questioning him about Peroni’s disappearance and death.
Police have not said why they believe Sanfratello is the killer. It’s also unclear how he has spent the last 40 years.
Sanfratello remains in custody in California and will be extradited back to Josephine County, the sheriff’s office said.
He’s had other bouts with the law. In 1985, Sanfratello was charged with two counts of attempted murder, one count of rape and one count of burglary in the stabbing of his ex-wife and her 14-year-old daughter in their California home, the Times reported. He was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for two counts of attempted murder. Years later, in 1999, he was convicted on a count of theft or embezzlement, court records show. He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution.
