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A man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to the four-decades-old cold case slaying of his girlfriend in Oregon.
Mark Sanfratello, 73, was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison stemming from the death of his girlfriend, Teresa Peroni, in 1983, according to the Oregon Department of Justice. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
“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 General Dan Rayfield said in a press release.
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Mark Sanfratello, 73, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for the death of his girlfriend, Teresa Peroni, in Oregon in 1983, according to the Oregon Department of Justice. (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System)
“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,” Rayfield added.
Peroni, who was 27 years old, was last seen walking into the woods with Sanfratello, her boyfriend at the time, after the pair attended a house party together in Selma.
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Teresa Peroni, 27, was last seen walking into the woods with her boyfriend Mark Sanfratello after attending a house party in Selma, Ore., in July 1983. (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System)
She was reported missing shortly after, with authorities deeming her disappearance suspicious.
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However, investigators were unable to secure sufficient evidence to bring charges against any individual at the time.
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Mark Sanfratello was taken into custody in Chico, Calif., in July 2025. (Josephine County Sheriff’s Office)
In 1997, a human skull belonging to Peroni was found on a nearby private property, but no additional remains were discovered.
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Authorities decided to reopen the case in 2024, in which investigators “reinterviewed witnesses, collected new DNA evidence and applied modern forensic techniques to build a case against Sanfratello,” prosecutors said.
One year later, in July 2025, Sanfratello was taken into custody in Chico, California and indicted on first-degree manslaughter charges after being extradited to Oregon, later pleading guilty in Josephine County Circuit Court.
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Under the terms of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Sanfratello will serve a minimum of 10 years in prison.
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The Oregon Department of Justice and Sanfratello’s attorney did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.