A human skull found discarded in a field was the key to unlocking the 42-year-old mystery of a woman who vanished after walking into Oregon woods with her boyfriend in 1983.
Police in California arrested her beau, Mark Sanfratello, now 72, on Saturday and charged him with murder for his alleged role in the death of his girlfriend, Teresa Peroni, who was 27 at the time of her disappearance.
Peroni attended a party in Selma with her 29-year-old then-boyfriend on July 3, 1983, cops said.
The couple had a troubled relationship.
After the party, the couple got into a fight when Sanfratello accused Peroni of infidelity, and the two soon went into a wooded area — and Peroni was never seen alive again, police said.
“Teresa was 27 years old and was known to be in a relationship with Mark Sanfratello who was 29,” according to a press release from the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office.
“Teresa was last seen with Sanfratello walking into a wooded area while attending a party.”
When Peroni never reappeared, her family reported her missing, and police launched an investigation.
They found her disappearance “to be suspicious in nature,” but “determined that there was not enough probable cause to move forward with criminal prosecution,” according to the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office.
There was no trace of Peroni, and eventually the case ran cold.
The first big break came in 1997, when a landowner alerted police to a human skull he had found near the woods where Peroni was last seen.
Police deployed cadaver dogs to look for other remains, but none were found. Investigators sent the skull to a cutting-edge DNA forensics lab at the University of North Texas.
Last year — 17 years after the discovery of the skull — police reopened Peroni’s case.
Investigators started by looking for anybody still alive who had some connection with the cold case and knew details of the first investigation in the 1980s.
Police also collected more DNA samples to be sent to the same UNT lab for testing — and confirmed that the skull found in 1997 was Peronis.
“On June 27th, 2025, after locating multiple individuals associated with Peroni, DNA results and the original case/investigation, a Josephine County Grand Jury indicted Sanfratello on the charge of Murder,” the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office said.
Officers in Chico, Calif., arrested Sanfratello the following day without incident, and he was questioned about his role in Peroni’s disappearance and murder, police said.
Sanfratello remains in jail in California awaiting extradition back to Oregon to stand trial, police said. His public defender was not able to be reached for comment.
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