Man sentenced to 20 years for killing then-girlfriend in 1980s cold case
Michelle Del ReyA California man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of his former girlfriend more than 40 years ago.
Marcus Sanfratello, 73, was handed the sentence after being convicted of the 1983 homicide of Teresa Peroni, according to an April 21 news release from the Oregon Department of Justice.
Sanfratello pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in Josephine County Circuit Court. According to the release, under the terms of the plea agreement, he will serve a minimum of 10 years.
“For Teresa Peroni’s family, this has been a 43-year wait for an answer they never should have had to wait for,” Oregon Attorney Dan General Rayfield said in a written statement. “Cases like this remind us of why we don’t give up. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed – if someone took a life, we’re going to keep working until we can hold them accountable.”
Peroni's disappearance
In July 1983, Peroni, 27, was reported missing after attending a party in the Selma, Oregon, area. The attorney general's office said she was last seen walking in the woods with Sanfratello, her boyfriend at the time.
While her disappearance was determined to be suspicious at the time, a Josephine County Sheriff’s Office investigation did not result in sufficient evidence to pursue charges, the release states.
But in 1997, more than a decade after the murder, officials recovered a human skull from a nearby property. No additional remains were discovered.
A new investigation
The Josephine County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case in 2024 alongside the Oregon Department of Justice and the Josephine County District Attorney’s Office.
As the investigation into the case continued, detectives re-interviewed witnesses, collected new DNA evidence and used DNA technology to build a case against Sanfratello.
Investigators presented evidence to a Josephine County grand jury on June 27, 2025. The jury indicted Sanfratello on charges of second-degree murder. The man was arrested the following day, on June 28, in Chico, California, 164 miles from San Francisco, before being extradited to Oregon.
Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected].