“I always wish I could have met her,” Sam Thor told Dateline about her aunt, Sharon Thor.
Sam told Dateline that growing up, she got to know Aunt Sharon from family members who slipped memories of her into conversation or reminisced about her at family events.
When Sam was 17, she took her first forensic science class in high school. Her curiosity inspired her to take on a huge responsibility in her independent project. She decided to take a deep dive into the case that has shaken her family since October 1982: the unsolved disappearance and murder of 15-year-old Sharon Thor — the aunt she never met.
In 2022, Sam created a 24-slide presentation to share with her class, detailing Sharon’s life before her tragic death. Sharon Thor grew up in Franklin Township, New Jersey, with her mother, father, and three brothers. She had been dancing since she was 4 years old. She loved dance so much that she attended three dance schools at once, primarily studying ballet and jazz. Sam told Dateline that her uncle Frank, the oldest of the Thor siblings, would tell her stories about how Sharon would have him watch her go through her dance routines.
Sam also told her forensics class what she learned about October 26, 1982 — the day Sharon went missing. “An 8-year-old boy reported seeing Sharon get into the car,” her presentation reads. “The child was too young to truly pay attention, but he remembers seeing two men with dark hair.”
The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office has 12 cases listed on its website’s “unsolved cases” section. Sharon’s is one of them. According to the prosecutor’s office, “On October 26, 1982, at approximately 5:30 p.m., 15-year-old Sharon Thor was preparing to leave her Franklin Township home for her weekly ballet dance lesson, which was three miles away in Bound Brook, when the home telephone rang.”
According to the prosecutor’s office website, Sharon seemed to be “pleased” to hear from the caller. “As soon as she hung up the phone, she told her mother that she would be right back as she rushed outside to the street,” the website details. “She climbed into the passenger side of a vehicle that had pulled up in front of her house, according to a child who had been playing in the front yard.”
When Sharon didn’t come home that evening, she was reported missing. Back in October 1982, Sharon’s mother, Sonia, told the Central New Jersey Home News that she didn’t think Sharon ran away from home. “I don’t believe she planned on running away because she took no extra clothes with her. She didn’t even take her coat or purse,” she said.
Stephen Thor, Sharon’s second-oldest brother, told Dateline he remembers searching for his sister, but they struggled to find leads. “We didn’t have no contacts. We didn’t have no phones. No, you know, no Googles, no nothing. You went by word of mouth and, you know, whoever you talk to,” he said.
Sharon missed her 16th birthday on October 28. The next day, according to the prosecutor’s office website, “a team of searchers found Sharon’s body discarded in a wooded area about a quarter mile from her home.”
Back in 1982, police told The Central New Jersey Home News that a search was being conducted by “about 50 members of the township’s police and fire departments and first aid squads” the day her body was discovered.
The newspaper reported that Sharon had been found “bludgeoned and partially nude,” her body showing signs of possible sexual assault. Searchers also found an object nearby that was believed to be the murder weapon.
“I remember when they found her — I remember when the detective came up to the door and came in, and then my mother screaming,” Stephen recalled.
According to Sam, police at the time interviewed many people — including friends and family. “Over a dozen detectives worked on this case and still came up empty-handed,” she said.
Dateline reached out to the Franklin Township Police Department for an interview about Sharon’s case and was directed to contact the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. “The investigation into the homicide death of Sharon Thor remains on-going by the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office (NJ) and the Franklin Township Police Department,” Chief Francisco Roman Jr. replied in an email. “We cannot comment on on-going investigations.”
In 2022, when Sam decided to take on advocacy for the case, she began contacting the detectives then assigned to it.
In March 2023, with Sam’s help, Sonia Thor signed papers to allow investigators to exhume her daughter’s body to be retested for DNA evidence. According to Sam, they are still testing the DNA.
Sharon’s memory has lived on in the community since her passing.
A play was written in her memory by family friend Nicholas Pelino Jr. titled “Remembering Sharon.” The play was performed in 2023 at Villagers Theatre in Franklin Township.
“Nick passed away in 2014, and ‘Remembering Sharon’ was the very last play he penned,” Director Marie Fiorello said in a statement in the play’s program. “Before his passing, he gave me all of his theatre scripts and told me if I was ever to do any one of them, it would be his wish that it be ‘Remembering Sharon’ in a venue located in Franklin Township.”
Sharon had dreams of becoming a professional dancer and opening her own studio one day.
According to Sam, Sharon’s friends would describe her as a “light.” One friend even shared with Sam that they still keep a photo of Sharon on her desk.
Sam, now 20 years old, hopes that by breathing new life into Sharon’s case all these years later, she can bring closure to her grandmother, Sonia, and the rest of her family. “[This is] mostly for my grandmother, because her biggest thing is, ‘I want to know who did it before I pass away,’” Sam said. “That’s what we’re pushing for.”
Anyone with tips regarding Sharon’s case can contact the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office at (908) 231-7100 or the Franklin Township Police Department at (732) 873-5533 or via the STOPit app using access code: SOMERSETNJ. Information can also be provided through the Somerset County Crime Stoppers’ Tip Line at 1-888-577-TIPS (8477). All anonymous STOPit reports and Crime Stopper tips will be kept confidential.
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