Oregon – A case that began with a young woman’s disappearance in the Oregon woods has now ended, more than four decades later, with a prison sentence.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced this week that Marcus Sanfratello, 73, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1983 homicide of Teresa Peroni. Sanfratello pleaded guilty in Josephine County Circuit Court to Manslaughter in the First Degree. Under the plea agreement, he must serve at least 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,” said Attorney General Rayfield.
“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 was 27 when she was reported missing in July 1983 after attending a party in the Selma area. According to investigators, she was last seen walking in the woods with Sanfratello, who was her boyfriend at the time. Her disappearance was considered suspicious, but the original investigation by the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office did not lead to charges because there was not enough evidence.
Years passed. Then, in 1997, a human skull was found on nearby private property. No other remains were located, and the case remained unresolved.
The break came decades later. In 2024, the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office reopened the investigation with help from the Oregon Department of Justice and the Josephine County District Attorney’s Office. Investigators went back through the old case with new tools. They re-interviewed witnesses, gathered new DNA evidence and used modern forensic methods that were not available when Peroni first disappeared.
On June 27, 2025, evidence was presented to a Josephine County grand jury, which indicted Sanfratello on a charge of Murder in the Second Degree. He was arrested the next day in Chico, California, through coordination between Chico Police, the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office and the Oregon Department of Justice. He was later extradited to Oregon.
The case was handled by the Oregon Department of Justice Criminal Division. Senior Assistant Attorneys General John Casalino and Brad Kalbaugh, along with ODOJ Special Agent Brendan McGuire, led the work of organizing more than 40 years of evidence.
The Oregon Department of Justice also credited Detective Sergeant Kile Heinrich of the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office, the Josephine County District Attorney’s Office, Oregon State Police Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Nici Vance, the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification and the Chico Police Department for their roles in the case.
