Joseph Paul Franklin | |
|---|---|
 MODOC mugshot | |
| Born | James Clayton Vaughn Jr. (1950-04-13)April 13, 1950 Mobile, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | November 20, 2013(2013-11-20) (aged 63) Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, Missouri, U.S. |
| Criminal status | Executed by lethal injection |
| Motive | Desire to incite arace war |
| Conviction | Multiplemurder convictions across different jurisdictions |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment x4 (March 23, 1981 & September 1986) Death (February 27, 1997) |
| Details | |
| Victims | 8 convicted 22 total suspected 6+ wounded[1] |
Span of crimes | August 7, 1977 – August 20, 1980 |
| Country | United States |
| States | Missouri,Wisconsin,Tennessee,Georgia,Virginia,Indiana,Ohio,Oklahoma,Pennsylvania,West Virginia,Utah |
Date apprehended | October 28, 1980 |
Joseph Paul Franklin (bornJames Clayton Vaughn Jr.; April 13, 1950 – November 20, 2013) was an Americanserial killer,white supremacist, and allegedbank robber who murdered sixteen people between 1978 and 1980.
In his youth, Franklin became attached to white supremacism, which he later claimed was due to sufferingchild abuse. He joined theNational Socialist White People's Party and theKu Klux Klan, and became acquainted with famous white supremacistDavid Duke.
Franklin either admitted to, or was convicted of, shooting 22 people across ten states, which hedrifted between while likely supporting himself with money from bank robberies. He alsofirebombed asynagogue in Tennessee, which did not cause any injuries. Franklin's victims were generally black men, their white girlfriends, and Jews. In 1978, he shot a white man,Larry Flynt, permanentlyparalyzing his lower body; Flynt was the head of pornographic magazineHustler, which angered Franklin by having recently depictedinterracial sex. In 1980, Franklin shot blackcivil rights activistVernon Jordan, who also survived.
Franklin was arrested in October 1980. He was convicted of several murders, receiving sevenlife sentences and onedeath sentence. He admitted to many other murders while in prison, but was not convicted for all of them. In 1997, Franklin admitted to two murders that a man named Jacob Beard had been imprisoned for since 1993; Beard was released in 1999. Franklin was ondeath row in Missouri for 15 years over the 1977 murder of Gerald Gordon. In November 2013, Franklin renounced his former racism. He was executed bylethal injection later that month.
Joseph Paul Franklin was born as James Clayton Vaughn Jr. inMobile, Alabama, on April 13, 1950, the elder son of James Clayton Vaughn Sr. and Helen Rau Vaughn. Franklin had two sisters and a brother.[2] His father was aWorld War II veteran andbutcher who left the family when Franklin was 8 years old. Helen had Vaughn Sr. jailed twice forpublic drunkenness.[3] Franklin later stated that as a child, he was rarely given enough to eat, suffered severe physical abuse,[4] and that his mother "didn't care about [him and his siblings]". He claimed that these factors stunted hisemotional development, and that he had "always been [at] least ten years or more behind other people in their maturity."[5] His sister Carolyn recalled, "Whenever [Vaughn Sr.] came to visit, he'd beat us". A family friend said Helen was a "a real strict, perfectionist lady", whose children said she had beaten them.[3]
As early as high school, Franklin developed an interest inevangelical Christianity, then inNazism. He later held memberships inwhite supremacist groups: theNational Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) and theKu Klux Klan. He eventually changed his name to "Joseph Paul Franklin", in honor of two white men:Benjamin Franklin andNazi Party officialPaul Joseph Goebbels.[6] Franklin was inspired to start arace war after readingAdolf Hitler's autobiography,Mein Kampf. Franklin later recalled: "I've never felt that way about any other book that I read [...] it was something weird about that book."[7] In the early 1970s, he took a road trip to an NSWPP conference in Virginia with white supremacistsDavid Duke andDon Black.[8]
For much of his life, Franklin was avagrant, roaming theEast Coast seeking chances to "cleanse the world" of people he considered inferior, especiallyblack andJewish people.[4] His primary source of financial support was likelybank robberies. Franklin supplemented his income from criminal acts with paidblood bank donations, which eventually led to his capture by theFBI.[9]
On July 29, 1977, Franklinfirebombed Beth ShalomSynagogue inChattanooga, Tennessee, destroying it. No one was injured, as some of the worshippers left early that evening.[10][11]
On August 7, he shot and killed aninterracial couple, Alphorance Manning and Toni Schwenn, both aged 23, at the parking lot of East Towne Mall inMadison, Wisconsin. He was later convicted of both murders and was sentenced tolife in prison.[12]
On October 8, in suburbanSt. Louis, Missouri, Franklin hid in the bushes nearBrith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue and fired on a group attending services.[4] He killed Gerald Gordon (age 42),[4] and wounded Steven Goldman and William Ash.[13]
On March 6, 1978, Franklin used aRuger Model 44semi-automatic rifle to shootHustler publisherLarry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reeves inLawrenceville, Georgia.[4][14] Franklin said this was in retaliation forHustler publishing a picture ofinterracial sex.[4] Flynt'sspinal cord was damaged, causing his lower body to be permanentlyparalyzed. Neither Franklin nor anyone else was ever charged for the shooting.[15]
On July 29, Franklin hid near aPizza Hut in Chattanooga, and fatally shot William Tatum (20), a black man, with a12-gauge shotgun. He also shot Tatum's white girlfriend, Nancy Hilton, and she survived. Franklin later confessed and pleaded guilty. He was given a life sentence, as well as a sentence for an unrelated armed robbery in 1977.[4]
On July 12, 1979, Harold McIver (29), a black man and a manager of aTaco Bell location, was fatally shot through a window from 150 yards (140 m) away inDoraville, Georgia. Franklin confessed to the crime, but was not tried or sentenced for it. He said that he murdered McIver for being in close contact to a white women.[4]
On August 18, Raymond Taylor, a black man inFalls Church, Virginia was fatally shot through the window of aBurger King he managed there. Franklin later confessed to killing him.[16][17]
On October 21, Franklin killed Jesse Taylor (42), a black man, and his white girlfriend, Marion Bresette (31), inOklahoma City,Oklahoma.[16]
On May 29, 1980, Franklin shotcivil rights activist andUrban League presidentVernon Jordan after seeing him with a white woman inFort Wayne, Indiana. Jordan was seriously wounded, but ultimately survived. Franklin initially denied any part in the shooting, and wasacquitted of it, but later confessed to it.[4][a]
On June 8, Franklin killed cousins Darrell Lane (14) and Dante Brown (13) inCincinnati, Ohio. Waiting on an overpass to shoot a racially mixed couple, he shot the boys instead, a crime to which he later confessed. He was convicted in 1998 and received two life sentences for these murders.[19][20]
On June 15, Franklin shot and killed Arthur Smothers (22), a black man, and Kathleen Mikula (16), a white woman, with a high-powered rifle as they walked across the Washington Street Bridge inJohnstown, Pennsylvania. Franklin had taken a concealed position on a wooded hillside overlooking downtown Johnstown, and waited for potential targets to enter his line of sight. He was never arrested for these murders, but confessed to them in jail.[21]
On June 25, Franklin used a .44 Ruger pistol to kill two white women andhitchhikers, Nancy Santomero (19) and Victoria Durian (26), inPocahontas County, West Virginia. He confessed to the crime in 1997 to an Ohio assistant prosecutor investigating another case. Franklin said he picked up the women and decided to kill them after one said she had a black boyfriend. A Florida man named Jacob Beard had been convicted and imprisoned in 1993 for the murders; he was freed in 1999, and a new trial was ordered based on Franklin's confession.[19] On May 31, 2000, a jury found Beard not guilty, and he later filed a lawsuit, wanting compensation forwrongful conviction, which led to a $2 millionsettlement.[22]
On August 20, Franklin killed two black men, Theodore Fields (20) and David Martin III (18) near Liberty Park located inSalt Lake City, Utah.[4] He was tried on federal civil rights charges as well as state first-degree murder charges.[23] He was convicted of both murders and was sentenced to life in prison.[24]
Following the two murders in Utah, Franklin returned to theMidwest. Traveling through Kentucky, he was detained and questioned regarding a firearm that was in his car. Franklin fled from the interrogators. Authorities then recovered sufficient evidence from his vehicle to potentially link him to the sniper killings.[9] His conspicuous racisttattoos, coupled with his habit of visiting blood banks, led investigators to issue a nationwide alert to blood banks. In October 1980, the tattoos drew the attention of a Florida blood bank worker, who contacted the FBI. Franklin was arrested inLakeland, Florida, on October 28.[9]
Franklin faced legal action across the U.S. for the next two decades, eventually being convicted of multiple murders, attacks, and other crimes at both the state and federal levels. He was sentenced to life in prison and received the death penalty in Missouri for murdering Gerald Gordon.[25]
Franklin tried unsuccessfully to escape during the judgment phase of his 1997 Missouri trial on charges of murdering Gordon but was ultimately convicted. PsychiatristDorothy Otnow Lewis, who had interviewed him at length, testified for the defense that she believed that Franklin was aparanoid schizophrenic and unfit to stand trial, noting Franklin's delusional thinking and a childhood history of severe abuse.[4]
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Franklin was held ondeath row at thePotosi Correctional Center nearMineral Point, Missouri.[26] In August 2013, theMissouri Supreme Court announced that Franklin would be executed on November 20.[27]Missouri Attorney GeneralChris Koster said in a statement that by setting execution dates, the state high court "has taken an important step to see that justice is finally done for the victims and their families."[28] In October, Larry Flynt called forclemency for Franklin, asserting "that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself."[29]
Franklin's execution was affected by theEuropean Union export ban when the German drug manufacturerFresenius Kabi was obliged to refuse having their drugs used forlethal injections.[30] In response, Missouri announced that it would use for Franklin's execution a new method of lethal injection, which used a single drug provided by an unnamed compounding pharmacy.[31]
In an interview with theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper published on November 17, 2013, Franklin said he had renounced his racist views. He said his motivation had been "illogical" and was partly a consequence of an abusive upbringing. He said he had interacted with black people in prison, adding: "I saw they were people just like us."[7][32]
On November 19, a U.S. District Judge inJefferson City, Missouri,Nanette Laughrey, granted astay of execution over concerns raised about the new method of execution.[33] A second stay was granted that evening by a U.S. District Judge in St. Louis,Carol E. Jackson, based on Franklin's claim that he was too mentally incompetent to be executed. An appeals court quickly overturned both stays,[34] and theU.S. Supreme Court subsequently rejected his final appeals.[35][36]
Franklin was executed at theEastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center inBonne Terre, Missouri, on November 20. The execution began at 6:07 a.m.CST and he was pronounced dead at 6:17.[34] His execution was the first lethal injection in Missouri to usepentobarbital alone instead of the conventionaluse of three drugs.[35] 5 grams (0.18 oz) of pentobarbital was administered.[37] He did not make any final written statement and did not speak a word in the death chamber. Three witnesses said Franklin did not seem to show pain; after the injection, he had blinked a few times, breathed and swallowed hard, then stopped moving.[38]
William Luther Pierce, founder of the white supremacist groupNational Alliance, dedicated his 1989 novelHunter to Franklin.[39] It revolves around a serial killer who murders interracial couples.[40] He once said that Franklin "saw his duty as a white man and did what a responsible son of his race must do."[41][42]
In the 1996 filmThe People vs. Larry Flynt, Franklin was portrayed by actorJan Tříska.
As a student at LSU, [David] Duke wrote letters to the National Socialist White People's Party, the group formerly known as the American Nazi Party. These Nazis invited Duke to their annual conference in Virginia and suggested that he carpool with two other white supremacists. Here's the author, Eli Saslow. One of them was about his age. A guy named Joseph Paul Franklin. The other was about two or three years younger. A guy named Don Black. And they piled into this car and started driving, you know, at 800 miles up the highway. And over the course of those hours, these three kids became really close.
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| International | |
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| Executions carried out in Missouri | ||
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| Preceded by Martin C.Link February 9, 2011 | Joseph Paul Franklin November 20, 2013 | Succeeded by |
| Executions carried out in the United States | ||
| Preceded by | Joseph Paul Franklin –Missouri November 20, 2013 | Succeeded by |
