Alison Fitzgerald, Associated Press writer
WAYLAND -- A skull fragment found in the woods here has been matched through DNA testing to Sarah Pryor, a 9-year-old girl who disappeared in 1985 while taking a walk near her family's suburban home, the district attorney said yesterday.
The discovery solves part of the mystery of what happened to the blond, gap-toothed child. For Sarah's parents, the find confirms what they had long believed that their youngest child has been living with God.
"In our hearts we have believed that Sarah has been in heaven for some time," said Barbara Pryor, as she choked back tears yesterday afternoon at a news conference in front of the Wayland Police Department. "Now with the positive identification of Sarah's remains, we have a conclusion confirming what we have believed."
A funeral service will be held Tuesday -- what would have been Sarah's 22nd birthday.
The break in the case came in April 1995 when the skull fragment was found deep in some woods on the Weston border, about four miles from Sarah's home. The remains were turned over to the state medical examiner, but he was unable to make a positive identification, said Middlesex County District Attorney Thomas Reilly, who has kept a picture of Sarah on his desk these last 12 years.
Then, in early 1997, a forensic anthropologist examined the remains and determined that they were those of a child around Sarah's age. The anthropologist also said the remains had been in the woods from anywhere from three to 15 years.
The district attorney's office turned to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology for help with DNA identification. The institute doesn't take many non-military cases; typically, the scientists there work on the recovery of soldiers missing from Vietnam.
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From the remains, the scientists were able to retrieve several strands of nuclear DNA. But without a sample of nuclear DNA from Sarah's body, they were unable to determine if it was a match.
Instead, in late November, they pulled out 12 strands of mitochondrial DNA, a type of DNA passed from mother to daughter. That's when Reilly's office asked Barbara Pryor and her daughter, Meg, for blood samples.
The samples, which went to the laboratory Dec. 22, showed they had found the object of their search. The skull was that of Sarah Pryor.
Residents said the neighbor who found the skull in the woods was told by police not to tell anyone.
Sarah and her parents had moved to the leafy suburb about 15 miles west of Boston from McMurray, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, only six weeks before she disappeared.
On Oct. 9, 1985, a crisp New England fall day, she told her father she was going for a walk to explore her new neighborhood. She put on her headphones and headed out onto busy Concord Road. She never returned, leading her family into what her father, Andrew, described as a "horrendous nightmare."
A man who was convicted in connection with an abduction attempt in Newton around the time Sarah disappeared was questioned in the Pryor case but never charged. That man was later convicted of murder in Texas.
Her parents, who have since separated, said they need some time to mourn their spirited, fun-loving child.
Barbara Pryor, who wore a lapel pin bearing her daughter's smiling face, had a message for other parents.
"Please go home and hug your children," she said yesterday. "And tell them that you love them."
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