Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Sharon Marshall - The Name That Wasn’t Hers - Part 1

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Sharon Marshall - The Name That Wasn’t Hers - Part 1 · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: For years, Sharon Marshall was remembered as a bright student,
0:11
Speaker 1: a devoted mother, and a woman who died in what
0:14
Speaker 1: appeared to be a tragic accident. But as investigators slowly
0:18
Speaker 1: began pulling out loose threads left behind after her death,
0:22
Speaker 1: her life unraveled into something far darker, a story filled
0:27
Speaker 1: with so many twists and turns along the way, things
0:30
Speaker 1: like false identities, long term control, sexual assault, murder, and
0:35
Speaker 1: a brutal man who hid in plain sight for decades.
0:41
Speaker 1: What emerged was not just a crime, but a systematic
0:45
Speaker 1: erasure of a child who never truly belonged to the
0:49
Speaker 1: name she was given. This is the true story of
0:53
Speaker 1: a woman who was called Sharon Marshall. However, her real
0:57
Speaker 1: name was Suzanne Marie Sevekis.
1:03
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
1:06
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning.
1:10
Speaker 1: The following podcast material intended more maturial audience. Listener discretion
1:19
Speaker 1: is advised. Out of all the mornings in this house
1:41
Speaker 1: that we live in this tiny house, this day, the
1:45
Speaker 1: day we wash the bedding from our bed is the
1:47
Speaker 1: best day. It's the best morning because we get to
1:50
Speaker 1: snuggle the dogs like thoroughly on our bed, not worry
1:53
Speaker 1: about the dog here because we're about to wash the bedding.
1:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's your favorite kind of day.
1:58
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite. That's one of my favorite
2:01
Speaker 1: mornings that we have in this house.
2:02
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we've said this before, but we usually
2:05
Speaker 2: like wash our bedding. The dogs don't get to snuggle
2:08
Speaker 2: on the bed for you know, a few days, half
2:11
Speaker 2: a week, and then they get to snuggle for half
2:15
Speaker 2: a week and then we washed the bedding or something.
2:17
Speaker 2: That's kind of how it goes generally.
2:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they get like when it's time to like, oh,
2:21
Speaker 1: we're about to start washing the bed, all the sheets,
2:24
Speaker 1: the blanket. Then I say, okay, the dogs can like
2:26
Speaker 1: start sleeping on the bed with us for a couple
2:27
Speaker 1: of days, and then that last day it's like a
2:29
Speaker 1: massive snuggle dshion before we peel all the sheets off
2:32
Speaker 1: and do laundry. Yeah, it makes a good way to start.
2:35
Speaker 2: The day, it does. It's too bad that they're just
2:38
Speaker 2: so hairy, I know, and.
2:39
Speaker 1: Huskies are notorious for their hair and fur and fluff
2:42
Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's a real thing. And attitude and
2:46
Speaker 1: the attitude that's for sure.
2:48
Speaker 2: Ben just said this morning, Okay, we've had so we've
2:52
Speaker 2: had three huskies, and unfortunately Mika has our one, Meca
2:56
Speaker 2: has passed, and Ripley's getting a little bit older. She's
2:58
Speaker 2: like seven now, and as they get older, they're just
3:01
Speaker 2: tooo next level.
3:03
Speaker 1: I think huskies age like milk. They just get sour.
3:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just like sassy, don't give us shit about anything.
3:13
Speaker 1: It's something that encapsulates huskies very well.
3:18
Speaker 2: Good job.
3:18
Speaker 1: I don't think Honey is going to be like that,
3:20
Speaker 1: though maybe not. She's a little bit different. But there
3:23
Speaker 1: is also a difference. Like when you sign up for
3:25
Speaker 1: our Patreon, for example, you get a little bit more
3:28
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, you get extra content, just like all
3:31
Speaker 1: the amazing people who signed up this week. For example,
3:34
Speaker 1: we have Mikayla, Pamela Henkel, Stacy Haybin, Rebecca Deardorf, Michelle
3:40
Speaker 1: and Dale Campbell. They all signed up. They're all getting
3:43
Speaker 1: that awesome access. They're just cool people like that, and
3:46
Speaker 1: we appreciate that. But we still appreciate you too. Don't worry,
3:48
Speaker 1: no pressure. They're awesome. You're awesome.
3:51
Speaker 2: Everyone's just awesome.
3:52
Speaker 1: Everyone's awesome. Yeah, everybody's awesome. I mean I think that's
3:56
Speaker 1: a good way to wrap it all up the day.
3:58
Speaker 1: The gist of the day one's awesome huskies of sassy
4:02
Speaker 1: and snuggling dogs before you do the laundry is great
4:05
Speaker 1: way to start, you know, the morning.
4:07
Speaker 2: I don't know if they thought it was super great.
4:09
Speaker 1: Maybe not. They liked it, but I think they get
4:11
Speaker 1: a little bit tired of too much snuggles. Before I
4:15
Speaker 1: say anything else, I do need to let you guys
4:17
Speaker 1: know that this case is a doozy. It is a
4:20
Speaker 1: two parter. So today is part one, and coming out
4:24
Speaker 1: later this week on Friday, will be part two for
4:28
Speaker 1: this case.
4:29
Speaker 2: Right on.
4:29
Speaker 1: Heads up for that.
4:31
Speaker 2: We haven't done a part two for or two parter
4:33
Speaker 2: for a little while.
4:34
Speaker 1: I think we haven't. We haven't, so it was nice
4:36
Speaker 1: to do a little bit more of a deeper dive.
4:37
Speaker 1: And when I came across this case, I looked at
4:40
Speaker 1: it and there's so I said it in the intro.
4:41
Speaker 1: There's so many twists and turns. There's so much happening
4:44
Speaker 1: in this story. It's it's you can't do a justice.
4:48
Speaker 1: I guess if you do it in one part, you
4:50
Speaker 1: almost have to break it down into two parts. Do
4:52
Speaker 1: a bit more of a deep dive and focus on
4:55
Speaker 1: all the things that happen along the way. So there's
4:58
Speaker 1: no other option in this case really than doing it
5:00
Speaker 1: two part. And I had to do this one because
5:02
Speaker 1: it's such a story.
5:03
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, you haven't told me a thing about it.
5:06
Speaker 2: He was even watching a dock yesterday and I had
5:09
Speaker 2: to like not listen.
5:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had.
5:11
Speaker 2: It was very difficult when you live in a tiny
5:13
Speaker 2: it is.
5:14
Speaker 1: It made it work. But you went on to the
5:15
Speaker 1: other end of the tiny home, into our little office.
5:17
Speaker 1: You closed the door, put your headphones on, and I
5:19
Speaker 1: got to watch the documentary. Yeah, so we made it work,
5:23
Speaker 1: and I got to watch it and got my research done.
5:26
Speaker 2: And here we are here, we are here, we are
5:28
Speaker 2: Let's dive into it, shall we.
5:29
Speaker 1: Okay, let's do it.
5:31
Speaker 2: So.
5:31
Speaker 1: In April of nineteen ninety, police and hospital staff in
5:35
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City were trying to make sense of a woman
5:37
Speaker 1: brought in for a medical emergency with some catastrophic injuries.
5:42
Speaker 1: She had been found lying along a highway roughly one
5:45
Speaker 1: hundred miles outside the city, and our groceries were scattered
5:49
Speaker 1: nearby on the side of the road. The initial conclusion
5:52
Speaker 1: was pretty straightforward enough. It was a hit and run situation.
5:56
Speaker 1: It appeared that she was struck from behind while walking
5:59
Speaker 1: back from a convenience store to a nearby motel six.
6:03
Speaker 1: The woman was identified as Tanya Hughes, a young mother
6:06
Speaker 1: in her early twenties. As a result of the incident,
6:09
Speaker 1: she was rushed to the Presbyterian Hospital with severe bruising
6:13
Speaker 1: and a large hematoma at the base of her skull. Now,
6:17
Speaker 1: despite the seriousness of her injuries, doctors, once they began
6:21
Speaker 1: treating her, they believed they could actually have her recover.
6:24
Speaker 1: She was placed under close observation and soon stabilized under
6:27
Speaker 1: a medical coma. Soon her husband arrived, though, and he
6:32
Speaker 1: introduced himself to hospital staff and doctors as Clarence Hughes.
6:36
Speaker 1: In most cases, when a loved one shows up to
6:38
Speaker 1: the hospital, it's generally speaking a good thing. However, in
6:41
Speaker 1: this case, it almost immediately felt like something was off.
6:46
Speaker 1: Hospital staff would later say his behavior didn't match the
6:49
Speaker 1: situation unfolding in front of him. He didn't ask many questions,
6:52
Speaker 1: he didn't linger, he didn't seem particularly well, relieved that
6:56
Speaker 1: his wife was alive, nor devastated by the possibility that
7:00
Speaker 1: she might not be when he first got there. Instead,
7:04
Speaker 1: he talked more about logistics. For example, he mentioned selling belongings,
7:09
Speaker 1: and he talked about leaving the state with their young son, Michael. Now.
7:13
Speaker 1: Around that same time, the hospital received a call that
7:16
Speaker 1: shifted the tone of everything. A couple friends of Tanya's,
7:19
Speaker 1: women who knew her very well, warned the staff not
7:22
Speaker 1: to let her husband be alone with her. They believed
7:26
Speaker 1: he was dangerous. They feared he might try to harm
7:29
Speaker 1: or maybe even kill her. However, there was no proof
7:32
Speaker 1: to act on. There were no restraining orders, no criminal
7:35
Speaker 1: flags tied to the name Clarence Hughes that would justify
7:39
Speaker 1: barring him from her room. But as it just so happened,
7:42
Speaker 1: shortly after one of his visits, Tanya Hughes died in
7:46
Speaker 1: her hospital bed. At the time, her death was officially
7:50
Speaker 1: attributed to the complications from the hit and run. The driver,
7:53
Speaker 1: unfortunately was never found, and there were suspicions that lingered
7:57
Speaker 1: quietly and were unresolved, but there was just nothing concrete
8:01
Speaker 1: enough to hold onto to investigators at that moment. This
8:05
Speaker 1: was a tragic accident involving a young woman and a
8:08
Speaker 1: shadowy personal life with a grieving husband who didn't quite
8:12
Speaker 1: fit the role. What no one knew yet, not the doctors,
8:16
Speaker 1: not the police, not even the people closest to her,
8:19
Speaker 1: was that Tanya Hughes was not this woman's real name,
8:23
Speaker 1: her husband wasn't even who he claimed to be, and
8:26
Speaker 1: her life, while it had been built on a lie
8:29
Speaker 1: that stretched back more than fifteen years, and buried beneath
8:34
Speaker 1: that lie, was the name of a man who'd been
8:36
Speaker 1: on the run since nineteen seventy three, Franklin Delano Floyd.
8:43
Speaker 1: But before anyone understood what really happened to Tanya Hughes,
8:47
Speaker 1: investigators would have to go back decades to a childhood
8:50
Speaker 1: marked by violence, abandonment, and the first crimes that set
8:54
Speaker 1: into motion a story of unimaginable twists and turns, one
8:59
Speaker 1: that would steal lie wives, erase identities, and ultimately give
9:04
Speaker 1: rise to one of the most disturbing predators few ever
9:08
Speaker 1: saw coming. Franklin Delano Floyd was born on June seventeenth,
9:14
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, in Barnesville, Georgia, USA. He was the
9:18
Speaker 1: youngest of five children and was raised in a home
9:21
Speaker 1: dominated by violence. His father, a cotton mill worker, was
9:25
Speaker 1: a heavy alcoholic who routinely beat his wife and children.
9:30
Speaker 1: Now fear shaped Franklin's earliest memories, and actually, from here
9:34
Speaker 1: on out, I do want a note, I'll be calling
9:36
Speaker 1: him Floyd. Though his first name is Franklin, most articles
9:39
Speaker 1: and everything online refers to him as Floyd, so I'm
9:42
Speaker 1: going to continue to do that. When he was just
9:45
Speaker 1: over a year old, Floyd's father died from kidney and
9:49
Speaker 1: liver failure related to alcohol abuse, and so now his mother, Della,
9:53
Speaker 1: was ultimately left to be widowed at the age of
9:55
Speaker 1: twenty eight with five children she could not support. For
9:59
Speaker 1: a bri time, the family lived with her parents, but
10:02
Speaker 1: the situation while it quickly collapsed. In nineteen sixty four,
10:06
Speaker 1: social service intervened and Floyd and his siblings were placed
10:10
Speaker 1: in the Georgia Baptist Children Home in Hapeville. The children's
10:14
Speaker 1: home was strict, overcrowded, and extremely abusive. Floyd later reported
10:21
Speaker 1: being bullied relentlessly by other children, often targeted for being
10:24
Speaker 1: seen as feminine. He also claimed he was repeatedly sexually
10:29
Speaker 1: assaulted by other boys in this institution. As well discipline
10:34
Speaker 1: from the staff. There was also severe, and one documented
10:37
Speaker 1: incident involved staff punishing him by forcing his hands into
10:41
Speaker 1: hot water after he was caught masturbating as a teenager.
10:45
Speaker 1: Holy shit, pretty extreme.
10:48
Speaker 2: So okay here, I was thinking this could even potentially
10:51
Speaker 2: be a better situation if his dad was like super
10:53
Speaker 2: abusive and stuff, but doesn't seem so at all.
10:57
Speaker 1: He went from well, the same goes out of the
11:01
Speaker 1: frying pan into the fire, right.
11:03
Speaker 2: Basically, that's really sad.
11:05
Speaker 1: It is violence and humiliation here were constant, and Floyd
11:09
Speaker 1: spent most of his childhood inside that institution. By age sixteen,
11:14
Speaker 1: though he began running away. In nineteen fifty nine, he
11:17
Speaker 1: fled the home and broke into a nearby house to
11:20
Speaker 1: steal some food. Now, when he was caught, rather than
11:23
Speaker 1: prosecuting him, the institution contacted his older sister, Dorothy, who
11:28
Speaker 1: agreed to take him in, but that arrangement didn't last,
11:31
Speaker 1: as Floyd was soon kicked out again, leaving him to
11:34
Speaker 1: drift on his own. He traveled to Indianapolis and search
11:38
Speaker 1: for his mother and learned she had become a sex worker.
11:40
Speaker 1: Where he found her for a short time, she helped
11:44
Speaker 1: him forge some documents, some false documents, so he could
11:47
Speaker 1: enlist in the US Army. The deception, though, was uncovered
11:51
Speaker 1: within six months when the Army discovered that he was
11:54
Speaker 1: under age and using false papers, so the result was
11:57
Speaker 1: a discharge, and again he was left without stability or
12:00
Speaker 1: any sort of direction. From here, Floyd spent his late
12:04
Speaker 1: teens moving across the country, committing thefts and small crimes
12:07
Speaker 1: to try and survive. On February nineteenth, nineteen sixty, at
12:12
Speaker 1: just sixteen years old, he broke into a seer store
12:15
Speaker 1: in Inglewood, California, attempting to steal a gun. Police responded
12:19
Speaker 1: to the alarm, and a shootout actually even unfolded from
12:23
Speaker 1: this incident. Floyd was shot in the stomach, but ultimately
12:26
Speaker 1: survived after emergency surgery. After that, he was sent to
12:31
Speaker 1: a youth institution for about another year, and then after
12:34
Speaker 1: his release, his behavior only escalated. In nineteen sixty one,
12:40
Speaker 1: he violated parole by leaving the country to go on
12:43
Speaker 1: a fishing trip to Canada, and then that following year
12:45
Speaker 1: back in Georgia, he was working at Atlanta International Airport.
12:50
Speaker 1: It was then in June of nineteen sixty two that
12:52
Speaker 1: he committed a crime that marked a very clear turning
12:55
Speaker 1: point for him. Floyd abducted a four year old girl
12:59
Speaker 1: from a bowling alley in Hapeville, and he took her
13:01
Speaker 1: to the nearby woods and sexually assaulted her.
13:04
Speaker 2: Oh gosh.
13:06
Speaker 1: After the assault, the girl was found and taken for
13:09
Speaker 1: medical care and examination. That examination confirmed that she had
13:13
Speaker 1: been assaulted, which immediately elevated the response from local authorities.
13:18
Speaker 1: Witnesses from the bowling alley where she was taken were
13:21
Speaker 1: able to provide descriptions of a man seen with the
13:23
Speaker 1: child shortly before she disappeared, and investigators quickly focused on Floyd,
13:28
Speaker 1: who was working in the area at the time and
13:31
Speaker 1: had been seen near the bowling alley. Ultimately, Floyd was identified, arrested,
13:36
Speaker 1: and charged within a very short period. As a result,
13:39
Speaker 1: he was convicted of kidnapping and child molestation and sentenced
13:43
Speaker 1: to ten to twenty years at Georgia's State prison in Reidsville.
13:47
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, he should be hopefully in jail for some time.
13:51
Speaker 2: It's kind of sad. I was almost rooting for him
13:54
Speaker 2: in a sense because it seemed like he needed some
13:56
Speaker 2: serious stability, right, Yes, but he is completely disgusting and yeah,
14:03
Speaker 2: I no longer am rooting for him whatsoever. And he
14:06
Speaker 2: should just be in jail for really the rest of
14:07
Speaker 2: his life. After doing something like that.
14:09
Speaker 1: I agree. I think any sort of child predator you
14:12
Speaker 1: should be locked up for life at the bare minimum.
14:15
Speaker 1: There is, of course, some consequences that we can debate
14:19
Speaker 1: that go beyond that, but we're not going to get
14:20
Speaker 1: into that today. However, I think you should be locked
14:23
Speaker 1: up right then there. But that's unfortunately not the case.
14:27
Speaker 2: Well because clearly he's a sick, sick man to do
14:30
Speaker 2: something like that, so he is now.
14:32
Speaker 1: He does have that history of the abuse and everything
14:35
Speaker 1: growing up, which can certainly affect and mold a young
14:38
Speaker 1: individual to what their adult life is going to be.
14:40
Speaker 1: But that's not an excuse now. Just because you suffered
14:44
Speaker 1: when you were young does not mean you have to
14:46
Speaker 1: make others suffer when you're an adult, period, full stop.
14:50
Speaker 1: I don't care. That's my opinion, and that will never change.
14:53
Speaker 1: Just because you had shit done to you does not
14:55
Speaker 1: mean you do shit onto others.
14:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is a four year old little girl
15:00
Speaker 2: exactly now, her life is completely, you know, fucked.
15:04
Speaker 1: Right now, prison didn't exactly stop him. In nineteen sixty three,
15:09
Speaker 1: while being escorted for a medical errand, Floyd escaped custody
15:12
Speaker 1: and fled to Macon Georgia and even robbed a bank,
15:15
Speaker 1: stealing more than six thousand US dollars. Now, he didn't
15:19
Speaker 1: get far, though, because he was captured later that day
15:21
Speaker 1: and sentenced again, this time in federal prison. More escape
15:25
Speaker 1: attempts followed, each adding years to his sentence and moving
15:29
Speaker 1: him through higher security facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
15:34
Speaker 1: Inside prison walls, life was not great for Floyd. He
15:38
Speaker 1: was repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted himself by other inmates.
15:42
Speaker 1: At one point he even climbed onto a prison roof
15:45
Speaker 1: and even threatened suicide. But even after that, guards offered
15:49
Speaker 1: very little protection and the cycle of violence just continued on. Now,
15:53
Speaker 1: despite convictions for child sexual assault, kidnapping, armed robbery, and escape,
15:59
Speaker 1: Floyd was least in November of nineteen seventy two and
16:03
Speaker 1: was sent to a half way house. And so that's
16:05
Speaker 1: ten years he spent in the facility.
16:07
Speaker 2: That bonkers to me.
16:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beyond me as well.
16:13
Speaker 2: That is the lowest he got or as a potential, right,
16:17
Speaker 2: even though he was a complete menace the whole time
16:19
Speaker 2: he was in jail.
16:20
Speaker 1: Menace is a nice way of doing it, or a
16:22
Speaker 1: nice way of saying it he was more than a menace, Like,
16:24
Speaker 1: he wasn't necessarily a menace to other inmates. I think
16:28
Speaker 1: he was like being bullied, being picked on, to simplify it.
16:32
Speaker 1: So I don't think he was really a menace to others.
16:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, he was a menace in the way of
16:36
Speaker 1: trying to escape, the suicide attempts, all those sort of things.
16:40
Speaker 1: But beyond that, he was a convicted sexual predator for children.
16:45
Speaker 1: That alone should just be locked up right away. Yes,
16:48
Speaker 1: now this isn't an excuse, but this is also in
16:52
Speaker 1: the sixties and early seventies were already talking about different time. Right,
16:56
Speaker 1: laws were not necessarily laxed, but it was easier to
17:01
Speaker 1: manipulate systems and get out early.
17:03
Speaker 2: I guess, okay, maybe a little bit more lenient or something.
17:07
Speaker 2: Or they didn't really recognize the consequences of reoffending so much.
17:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, of course, I think that's a good way
17:14
Speaker 1: of looking at it. They didn't recognize the consequences of
17:16
Speaker 1: potential reoffenders. He could be a reoffender, there's no evidence
17:21
Speaker 1: of that. But however, there was nothing really going along
17:24
Speaker 1: the way of saying, well, what can we do to
17:26
Speaker 1: reintegrate them? They did send him to a halfway house,
17:29
Speaker 1: which is a good step for sure, but it only
17:32
Speaker 1: took weeks for him to reoffend after that. It was
17:35
Speaker 1: on January twenty seventh, nineteen seventy three, when he attacked
17:38
Speaker 1: a woman at a gas station, forcing her into her
17:40
Speaker 1: car and attempting to sexually assault her. Now, thankfully, she
17:45
Speaker 1: did what anyone should do in that situation. She fought
17:49
Speaker 1: back and she managed to escape and report him. So
17:53
Speaker 1: Floyd was arrested and then released on bond.
17:56
Speaker 2: Oh it was.
17:57
Speaker 1: Actually a former inmate acquaintance who had posted that bond,
18:01
Speaker 1: and Floyd was ordered to return to court in June
18:04
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy three. But I'm sure you wouldn't be
18:07
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that he never appeared in court.
18:11
Speaker 2: Keh. I'm already just pissed because that. Ugh. I hate
18:15
Speaker 2: when people get released, okay right there, like he reoffended
18:19
Speaker 2: right away. It's like, okay, no more chances, Like you're
18:22
Speaker 2: done done.
18:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, But he was posted on bond. They allowed that
18:26
Speaker 1: to happen and just right back into public.
18:28
Speaker 2: I hate that, I know.
18:30
Speaker 1: By the summer of nineteen seventy three, Franklin Delano, Floyd
18:34
Speaker 1: vanished completely. He was now a fugitive with a long
18:37
Speaker 1: history of violence and sexual crimes, free to just reinvent
18:41
Speaker 1: himself out in the world. So by nineteen seventy four,
18:46
Speaker 1: Franklin Delano Floyd was no longer living under his real name.
18:49
Speaker 1: As a fugitive who had skipped bail the year before,
18:52
Speaker 1: he needed distance from his past and a way to
18:55
Speaker 1: blend in. He ultimately found both by becoming Brandon Williams.
19:00
Speaker 1: Using that name, Floyd drifted through the Southern States until
19:04
Speaker 1: he crossed paths with a woman who was struggling to
19:06
Speaker 1: keep her life together. Her name was Sandra Francis Brandenburg.
19:12
Speaker 1: She was in her mid twenties and a single mother
19:14
Speaker 1: of four young children. Her oldest was Suzanne Maurice Vakis,
19:18
Speaker 1: who was born in nineteen sixty nine. Now Suzanne had
19:22
Speaker 1: two younger sisters, Alison and Amy, and then a baby
19:25
Speaker 1: brother named Philip who was nicknamed Stevie, who had been
19:28
Speaker 1: born in nineteen seventy four. Sandra's life was unstable at best.
19:34
Speaker 1: She was financially desperate, battling addiction, and terrified of losing
19:38
Speaker 1: custody of her children, whom she cared deeply for. Now
19:41
Speaker 1: Floyd recognized that vulnerability in her immediately, and he presented
19:46
Speaker 1: himself as a calm, capable, and dependable individual, the opposite
19:52
Speaker 1: of all the chaos surrounding Sandra's life. According to later accounts,
19:57
Speaker 1: he told her he could help her turn her life around.
20:00
Speaker 1: He offered her stability, structure, and a promise to be
20:03
Speaker 1: the father that her children needed so desperately. To her,
20:07
Speaker 1: it must have sounded like a fairy tale, and so
20:10
Speaker 1: why wouldn't she take a leap of faith with them?
20:12
Speaker 2: Right?
20:13
Speaker 1: And with that the relationship moved very quickly. Within a
20:16
Speaker 1: month of meeting Floyd, Sandra had married him. Floyd encouraged
20:21
Speaker 1: Sandra to move in with him, pulling her from the
20:24
Speaker 1: area with the limited support system that she still had.
20:28
Speaker 1: The family relocated, isolating Sandra further and placing Floyd's well
20:33
Speaker 1: position firmly in control. From the outside, it appeared to
20:37
Speaker 1: be a fresh start, a husband, a home, and someone
20:40
Speaker 1: claiming to take responsibility. But then in nineteen seventy five,
20:45
Speaker 1: Sandra was arrested and sentenced to thirty days in jail
20:49
Speaker 1: for trying to pass a bad check when trying to
20:51
Speaker 1: purchase diapers for her children. Now, for the record, I'm
20:55
Speaker 1: of the personal opinion if you ever see a mother
20:58
Speaker 1: trying to steal diapers, no you didn't.
21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, just saying that, and to go to jail for
21:03
Speaker 2: thirty days, I know that's kind of harsh, I guess right.
21:08
Speaker 1: I know, not to say that, hey, stealing's good, but
21:12
Speaker 1: stealing diapers, I honestly think diapers should be free, I don't.
21:17
Speaker 1: I think you know what sanitary products for women, diapers,
21:21
Speaker 1: things like that, they need to be free. And in
21:24
Speaker 1: this situation, she was trying to just provide a need
21:27
Speaker 1: for her children.
21:28
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, what is she going to do without that? Right?
21:31
Speaker 1: Exactly so, with no other option, though, her children were
21:34
Speaker 1: left in the care of her husband, the man she
21:36
Speaker 1: entrusted to protect them as she was placed behind bars.
21:41
Speaker 1: What no one knew at the time, though, was that
21:43
Speaker 1: this thirty day sentence would become the single most important
21:47
Speaker 1: turning point in this entire story, because you see, when
21:52
Speaker 1: Sandra walked out of jail and returned home, she found
21:56
Speaker 1: the house empty. Floyd was gone, and so we're all
22:00
Speaker 1: four of her children now. At first, when she saw
22:04
Speaker 1: that empty house with her children nowhere around, Sandra assumed
22:08
Speaker 1: there must have been some misunderstanding, a temporary arrangement, a trip,
22:12
Speaker 1: something explainable. But that illusion collapsed quickly. Floyd had emptied
22:17
Speaker 1: her bank account of what little she had, and he
22:20
Speaker 1: vanished without leaving a forwarding address or anything.
22:24
Speaker 2: Okay, I was not expecting that. I thought the house
22:27
Speaker 2: would be complete chaos and that he would have done
22:31
Speaker 2: some terrible things within it. But I wasn't expecting them
22:35
Speaker 2: to just have vanished.
22:37
Speaker 1: This story has a lot of twists and turns. That way,
22:39
Speaker 1: what you expect to happen never happens. It always goes
22:43
Speaker 1: some weird way. This guy, this Floyd, dude, he's messed
22:48
Speaker 1: up and what he did is so out there bizarre
22:52
Speaker 1: and horrific. Okay, so just telling you.
22:55
Speaker 2: That now, okay, you're worning us.
22:58
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he's already done some horrific yes, yeah.
23:01
Speaker 1: And I don't go into too much of detail of
23:04
Speaker 1: the sexual assaults. I'll say that as well. It's more
23:07
Speaker 1: of the story along the way. And oh my god,
23:10
Speaker 1: how many twists and turns. So anyways, I digress, let
23:13
Speaker 1: me continue. Sandra began trying to search immediately for where
23:17
Speaker 1: he took her kids. It was through church run social
23:20
Speaker 1: services and state agencies that she eventually found Alison and Amy,
23:25
Speaker 1: her two middle daughters. They'd been abandoned at care facilities
23:29
Speaker 1: and were later reunited with her. But Suzanne, her oldest
23:34
Speaker 1: she was gone and so was Philip, the baby. Now.
23:38
Speaker 1: Sandra did go to authorities right away, but she ran
23:40
Speaker 1: into a wall immediately. See, Floyd was Suzanne's stepfather, so
23:45
Speaker 1: under the laws and assumptions at the time, police told
23:48
Speaker 1: her there was little they could do and she would
23:50
Speaker 1: have to go the route of a civil case. Basically,
23:53
Speaker 1: it was treated as a custody matter and not a
23:55
Speaker 1: kidnapping because Floyd, they said, well had the right to
23:58
Speaker 1: take the children since they were married and he was
24:01
Speaker 1: their legal guardian. That decision closed the case before it
24:06
Speaker 1: ever truly opened. From that moment forward, Suzanne and Philip
24:11
Speaker 1: were no longer being searched for. There were no ember
24:14
Speaker 1: alerts that were issued to the public, there were no
24:18
Speaker 1: missing child reports that followed across state lines, and as
24:21
Speaker 1: far as the system was concerned, the two had simply
24:24
Speaker 1: gone off with their stepfather. In reality, Suzanne and her
24:28
Speaker 1: brother had been taken by a fugitive, a convicted child
24:32
Speaker 1: molester no less, who was about to rewrite Suzanne's identity
24:37
Speaker 1: and present her to the world as his daughter. For Sandra,
24:42
Speaker 1: the loss was immediate and permanent. She had gone to
24:46
Speaker 1: jail believing that she was going to serve her sentence
24:48
Speaker 1: and then returned to her children, but instead she lost
24:51
Speaker 1: two of them. And for investigators, the mistake was quieter,
24:55
Speaker 1: but it was very consequential. By failing to recognize the
24:59
Speaker 1: danger that Floyd posed, and by viewing the situation through
25:03
Speaker 1: such a narrow custody lens, the system allowed a convicted
25:07
Speaker 1: child predator to walk away with a child who would
25:09
Speaker 1: spend the rest of her life under his control. Suzanne
25:13
Speaker 1: was gone, and no one officially was looking for her.
25:18
Speaker 1: With no active search underway and no charges filed, Franklin
25:22
Speaker 1: Delano Floyd moved on through the world freely. His crossed
25:26
Speaker 1: the state lines without any interference, carrying Suzanne with him,
25:29
Speaker 1: as if nothing illegal had happened. To the world. He
25:33
Speaker 1: wasn't hiding a kidnapped child, He was simply just raising
25:36
Speaker 1: his daughter, and while Suzanne was taken and kept, he
25:40
Speaker 1: deliberately scattered the other three kids, Alison and Amy. We
25:44
Speaker 1: already understand the two middle daughters. They were left behind
25:46
Speaker 1: at separate church run social services and children's homes in
25:50
Speaker 1: the Regent, and when Sandra began calling frantically after her
25:53
Speaker 1: release from jail, she thankfully eventually tracked them down and
25:57
Speaker 1: they were reunited with her. The youngest child, Philip, though
26:01
Speaker 1: still an infant, well, Floyd arranged a private adoption, cutting
26:06
Speaker 1: off any formal paper trail that might have made the
26:09
Speaker 1: placement traceable. So unlike Suzanne, who was kept close and
26:13
Speaker 1: Amy and Allison, who were left where they could be found,
26:16
Speaker 1: Philip couldn't be found and simply vanished.
26:21
Speaker 2: Okay, this is really bad.
26:23
Speaker 1: Hey, yeah it is. I told you.
26:26
Speaker 2: And do we know how old the oldest kid is?
26:29
Speaker 2: Then the oldest.
26:30
Speaker 1: Daughter there, Suzanne, I believe she's around five or six
26:33
Speaker 1: at the time.
26:34
Speaker 2: Oh so she's okay, Okay, I don't know why, but
26:37
Speaker 2: I guess I was hoping she was a little bit
26:39
Speaker 2: older than that.
26:40
Speaker 1: But no, she's a child.
26:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like a baby. Really yeah, Okay.
26:45
Speaker 1: Now, together, these choices reveal a lot of intent. Floyd
26:49
Speaker 1: did not take all four children because he wanted a family, right.
26:53
Speaker 1: He didn't do that because, hey, I'm going to go
26:55
Speaker 1: and just take these kids for myself. He got rid
26:58
Speaker 1: of what he didn't want, and he took Suzanne because
27:01
Speaker 1: she was valuable to him. The others were more like
27:05
Speaker 1: obstacles to be removed in whatever way was most convenient
27:08
Speaker 1: for him at the time. Investigators would later determine that
27:12
Speaker 1: it was around this time that Floyd began sexually abusing Suzanne,
27:17
Speaker 1: which was not long after he took her from Texas,
27:21
Speaker 1: which places her to be around five or six years old.
27:24
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, which I mean, I think we were all
27:27
Speaker 2: fearing here.
27:28
Speaker 1: Yes, And he does continue to do this throughout her life.
27:33
Speaker 1: And so with that he lived the life that he
27:36
Speaker 1: wanted and he acted like nothing ever happened. Floyd began
27:39
Speaker 1: enrolling Suzanne in schools under different new identities, presenting himself
27:43
Speaker 1: as a single father whose wife had tragically passed away.
27:47
Speaker 1: It was a simple story he could tell and people
27:49
Speaker 1: would easily believe without asking too many pressing questions on
27:52
Speaker 1: a rather sensitive topic, and it worked. Teacher saw a
27:56
Speaker 1: quiet man and a young girl who appeared clean, polite,
27:59
Speaker 1: and intelligent. School records were created, attendances were logged, report
28:04
Speaker 1: cards were issued, and on paper, Susanne existed, just not
28:08
Speaker 1: as her real self. This period is one of the
28:11
Speaker 1: most unsettling parts of the case because of how ordinary
28:15
Speaker 1: it looked. Susanne attended classes, she made friends, she learned
28:21
Speaker 1: to read, write, and participate in school life. But behind
28:23
Speaker 1: the scenes, however, Floyd was doing two things at once. First,
28:28
Speaker 1: he was tightening his control. Susanne was taught a single
28:32
Speaker 1: version of her own life, and that was that her
28:35
Speaker 1: mother was dead and that Floyd was her father, and
28:38
Speaker 1: that's everything that she had also came from him, which
28:42
Speaker 1: brought up Stockholm syndrome as a type of situation in
28:45
Speaker 1: her life, a very real situation. Now, over time, repetition
28:50
Speaker 1: turned the lie into her lived reality, as there was
28:53
Speaker 1: no alternative narrative that was going to be offered and
28:57
Speaker 1: no safe adult to contradict what was said now. Second,
29:03
Speaker 1: he was refining the identity framework that would carry them forwards.
29:07
Speaker 1: Names were adjusted, false identities were simplified, and the goal
29:12
Speaker 1: wasn't perfection. It was instead about plausibility. In an era
29:18
Speaker 1: without interconnected databases or instant record checks or Internet, plausibility
29:24
Speaker 1: was all he needed to get by Now it's important
29:29
Speaker 1: to clarify, and I'm sure you already understand this, but still,
29:33
Speaker 1: Suzanne was not kept hidden in a basement or locked
29:36
Speaker 1: away from the world. She was very visible and out
29:39
Speaker 1: in the open, which paradoxically made her harder to find.
29:43
Speaker 1: People assumed kidnapped children are concealed, and Floyd understood that
29:48
Speaker 1: visibility could be a camouflage, effectively hiding her in plain sight.
29:54
Speaker 1: This stage of Suzanne's life would stretch across multiple moves
29:59
Speaker 1: and schools. Each relocation reset scrutiny with new teachers, new classmates,
30:05
Speaker 1: new paperwork, and by the time she was approaching adolescents,
30:09
Speaker 1: the name Susanne Maurice Veakis, the child taken from her
30:12
Speaker 1: mother in nineteen seventy five, had already begun to fade.
30:16
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone would become suspicious of the situation,
30:20
Speaker 2: but even if say they were, he just relocated so
30:25
Speaker 2: often that it didn't even give anyone that opportunity.
30:27
Speaker 1: I guess exactly as soon as a single question mark
30:32
Speaker 1: kind of started to appear, he's gone. He's gone. And
30:36
Speaker 1: to keep everything quiet, he was manipulating her at such
30:41
Speaker 1: a level where she's telling the lie out in public
30:44
Speaker 1: to friends and everyone at school, because by the time
30:46
Speaker 1: she goes home, she's going to get assaulted and who
30:48
Speaker 1: knows which way, whether it's sexual, physical, mental, all of
30:52
Speaker 1: the above likely, And it's so extreme it puts fear
30:56
Speaker 1: onto a child that they're going to do whatever they're told. Yeah,
31:00
Speaker 1: and then like I said, that dependence as well is building,
31:02
Speaker 1: so it also builds that bit of Stockholm situation.
31:06
Speaker 2: Hm. Okay, this is so sad because I mean, he like,
31:13
Speaker 2: don't I don't want a word it like that. But
31:14
Speaker 2: he's done like a good job to get what he's wanted,
31:18
Speaker 2: I guess, And there really is no no out for
31:21
Speaker 2: her and she doesn't even how would she even go
31:24
Speaker 2: about knowing what to do?
31:25
Speaker 1: Yes, now, soon Floyd would give her a name the
31:29
Speaker 1: world would come to know. You see. It was by
31:32
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies that this transformation was complete. Franklin
31:36
Speaker 1: Delano Floyd was now living under the name Warren Marshall,
31:40
Speaker 1: and Suzanne Maurice Veakis became Sharon Marshall. Now I'm a
31:45
Speaker 1: little bit torn here on whether I should be using
31:47
Speaker 1: her full name, her real name Suzanne, or the name
31:51
Speaker 1: Sharon to refer to here going forward. Her real name
31:55
Speaker 1: is Suzanne, and I want to honor that fully. However,
31:58
Speaker 1: she did live a lot of her life as Sharon,
32:01
Speaker 1: and she made that name her own right, So both
32:05
Speaker 1: names are truly hers, whether she was given one by
32:08
Speaker 1: a monster or not. So from here on out, I
32:11
Speaker 1: will be referring to her as Sharon, because I think,
32:13
Speaker 1: you know what, he did give her that name, but
32:16
Speaker 1: she owned it. That is her name. She took it
32:18
Speaker 1: from him, in my opinion, So I'll be referring to
32:21
Speaker 1: her for her as Sharon from here on out.
32:24
Speaker 2: Okay, but Floyd is still being referred.
32:27
Speaker 1: To Floyd is still with Floyd because.
32:28
Speaker 2: This is the second time that he's changed his name.
32:32
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a lot of aliases within this, and if
32:36
Speaker 1: I do refer to a separate alias, I will be
32:39
Speaker 1: clarifying either Floyd or Sharon. So Suzanne is Sharon. They
32:44
Speaker 1: are one and the same person. Both those names, in
32:46
Speaker 1: my opinion, are hers. So this was a full identity reset,
32:52
Speaker 1: right down to those school records, medical visits, housing paperwork,
32:56
Speaker 1: all of it. It all belonged to Sharon Marshall, the
32:59
Speaker 1: daughter of a widowed and struggling father, who told a consistent,
33:03
Speaker 1: rehearsed story. Wherever they landed, they moved frequently, and each
33:07
Speaker 1: relocation followed the same pattern. New Town New School. Same
33:12
Speaker 1: explanation that Sharon's mother was dead and Warren, which is Floyd,
33:17
Speaker 1: was doing his best. They had to move for work,
33:21
Speaker 1: and nothing about that sounded urgent or suspicious. That's simply
33:24
Speaker 1: how I was told. Now what's important here is that
33:27
Speaker 1: Sharon was not being hidden still. She was enrolled in
33:30
Speaker 1: school continuously, she advanced grade by grade, and everyone knew
33:34
Speaker 1: her as being very bright, polite, and very capable. This
33:38
Speaker 1: is also the period where control became less visible and
33:41
Speaker 1: more internal. Sharon learned what not to say, She learned
33:47
Speaker 1: which questions were safe to answer which ones weren't. She
33:50
Speaker 1: learned that being agreeable, successful and quiet kept life predictable.
33:56
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that she ever tried to tell anyone
33:58
Speaker 1: who she really was during these years, and by the
34:01
Speaker 1: time she reached to early teens, the identity of Sharon
34:04
Speaker 1: Marshall was no longer just a cover story, but it
34:07
Speaker 1: was the only version of herself that she was allowed
34:09
Speaker 1: to present to the world, and effectively she was Sharon Marshall,
34:14
Speaker 1: which is exactly why I want to use that name
34:16
Speaker 1: to honor that too. By then the early nineteen eighties,
34:21
Speaker 1: they were settling into Georgia, just long enough for something
34:24
Speaker 1: new to happen. For the first time in her life,
34:27
Speaker 1: Sharon would be somewhere long enough to form real friendships.
34:32
Speaker 1: It was in nineteen eighty three when Sharon enrolled at
34:36
Speaker 1: Forest Park High School in Forest Park, Georgia. She was
34:40
Speaker 1: around thirteen years old then, and to her classmates and teachers,
34:43
Speaker 1: Sharon stood out, but not in a bad way, mind you.
34:46
Speaker 1: She was smart and consistently at the top of her class.
34:50
Speaker 1: She had a quick sense of humor, was friendly without
34:52
Speaker 1: being loud, and came across as mature beyond her age.
34:55
Speaker 1: Teachers described her as focused and driven, while her friends
34:58
Speaker 1: saw her as kind, loyal, and dependable. She talked about
35:02
Speaker 1: the future in ways that sounded hopeful, not trapped, and
35:05
Speaker 1: if there was a version of Sharon that looked like
35:07
Speaker 1: a normal teenager, this was it. But beneath that surface,
35:13
Speaker 1: the warning signs were there, just scattered enough that no
35:16
Speaker 1: one quite knew how to name them. Sharon was still
35:19
Speaker 1: living under extreme rules and control. She'd had to be
35:23
Speaker 1: home at a very specific time every day, four pm,
35:26
Speaker 1: no exceptions. Friends noticed that if she was even a
35:30
Speaker 1: few minutes late, her demeanor would change completely. People described
35:35
Speaker 1: seeing real fear in her eyes when she thought she
35:38
Speaker 1: might be running late, and when she was asked why,
35:41
Speaker 1: she explained that her father at home needed her help
35:44
Speaker 1: to cook clean because he had a back injury. Now
35:48
Speaker 1: these explanations never really fully lined up, but again, like
35:51
Speaker 1: all the other lies, they were just plausible enough to
35:54
Speaker 1: quiet any of the mounting concern There were also a
35:58
Speaker 1: few inconsistencies in her story about her mother that began
36:01
Speaker 1: to surface too. Sometimes Sharon said her mother had died
36:04
Speaker 1: of cancer, and other times she said it was from
36:06
Speaker 1: a car accident. The details shifted depending on who was asking,
36:10
Speaker 1: and some of her friends began to notice, but again
36:13
Speaker 1: no one pressed too hard. A lot of people don't
36:16
Speaker 1: really interrogate other people's trauma. All the while, Floyd or
36:21
Speaker 1: should I say quote Warren Marshall, was overly present in
36:25
Speaker 1: Sharon's life. He monitored her movements very closely. He dropped
36:29
Speaker 1: her off and picked her up from school, keeping a
36:31
Speaker 1: close eye the entire time. Some classmates and parents noticed
36:36
Speaker 1: behavior that felt odd and even inappropriate. There was controlling
36:40
Speaker 1: body language, There was possessiveness and interactions that didn't seem
36:44
Speaker 1: like a typical father daughter dynamic. For example, at times.
36:48
Speaker 1: People reported that he kissed her on the lips in public,
36:51
Speaker 1: and it was odd. People noticed and were uncomfortable. But
36:55
Speaker 1: discomfort isn't the same as proving something was wrong. Perhaps
36:59
Speaker 1: it was just that they were different. I mean, Sharon
37:02
Speaker 1: herself never confirmed anything was wrong. When friends asked questions,
37:08
Speaker 1: she shut down. She would change the subject, deflect, or
37:11
Speaker 1: go quiet. There was a clear sense that certain topics
37:15
Speaker 1: were off limits, and for her it wasn't because she
37:18
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk, but because she couldn't. During this
37:22
Speaker 1: period in her life, Sharon formed a close friendship with
37:26
Speaker 1: Jennifer Fisher, a relationship that would later become one of
37:29
Speaker 1: the clearest windows into what life with Floyd was actually
37:33
Speaker 1: like and understanding Sharon's life. Jennifer spent time inside the
37:38
Speaker 1: home and quickly sensed that something was deeply wrong. For example,
37:44
Speaker 1: one time, during a sleepover, Floyd entered the bedroom without
37:47
Speaker 1: warning and pointed a gun directly at Jennifer, frightening her
37:51
Speaker 1: so badly that she believed she might actually seriously be
37:53
Speaker 1: harmed right then and there. Then, moments later, he laughed
37:57
Speaker 1: and dismissed it as a joke.
37:59
Speaker 2: Oh, that's actually terrifying and not funny at all. So
38:04
Speaker 2: I don't get that exactly. And there's one of two
38:06
Speaker 2: things that happened in the situation. One it was exactly
38:10
Speaker 2: a joke and it was just a sick, disturbing joke.
38:12
Speaker 2: Well that is not funny, but okay.
38:15
Speaker 1: Or two he didn't realize that someone else was there,
38:18
Speaker 1: didn't know who it was, and came in with a gun,
38:21
Speaker 1: actually angry and upset, quickly understanding the situation and just
38:25
Speaker 1: playing it off as a joke. Oh no, yes, So
38:29
Speaker 1: those are one of the two situations that I can
38:31
Speaker 1: see at being okay.
38:33
Speaker 2: I don't think I even thought of the second one. Yeah,
38:36
Speaker 2: that's sad.
38:37
Speaker 1: Now, regardless, the message was very clear. He controlled the space,
38:41
Speaker 1: and fear was something that he used very deliberately in
38:43
Speaker 1: this household Now, Jennifer also noticed the way Floyd involved
38:48
Speaker 1: himself in Sharon's personal life and appearance. He commented on
38:52
Speaker 1: her clothing, He controlled what she wore and exerted authority
38:56
Speaker 1: over her body and presentation in ways that felt intruse
39:00
Speaker 1: and very inappropriate. His control extended beyond the house as well.
39:05
Speaker 1: He closely monitored Sharon's movements, enforced rigid curfews, and inserted
39:10
Speaker 1: himself into situations where his presence served no protective purpose
39:14
Speaker 1: and only heightened discomfort. What Jennifer saw was a consistent
39:19
Speaker 1: pattern of intimidation, boundary crossing, and psychological dominance. Sharon appeared
39:25
Speaker 1: visibly anxious, constantly fearful of displeasing the man she was
39:29
Speaker 1: forced to call her father. Still, though Sharon never disclosed abuse,
39:35
Speaker 1: and without a direct complaint or clear evidence, nothing was reported,
39:40
Speaker 1: nothing was investigated. Despite this, Sharon went on to graduate
39:45
Speaker 1: from Forest Park High School in nineteen eighty six, and
39:48
Speaker 1: in doing so, she'd done something remarkable given the life
39:52
Speaker 1: that she was living. Behind the scenes. She had earned
39:56
Speaker 1: herself a full academic scholarship to Georgia Institute of Technology,
40:01
Speaker 1: where she planned to study aerospace engineering.
40:05
Speaker 2: That is remarkable because I when you said that she graduated,
40:09
Speaker 2: I thought that was freaking amazing in itself. Really yeah,
40:12
Speaker 2: But the fact that she got a full scholarship while like.
40:16
Speaker 1: Also exactly now. Friends remembered her talking about NASA, about science,
40:21
Speaker 1: about leaving Georgia and finally building a future that belonged
40:25
Speaker 1: to her. For the first time in her life, Sharon
40:29
Speaker 1: had something that looked like a way out, a full
40:32
Speaker 1: scholarship was not just an academic achievement. It was a distance.
40:38
Speaker 1: It was independence and the possibility of a future that
40:42
Speaker 1: did not revolve around this monster Floyd.
40:46
Speaker 2: I don't feel like he's going to let her.
40:47
Speaker 1: Do it, though you don't think so. No, Well, I
40:52
Speaker 1: think you might be right, because that opportunity disappeared almost
40:55
Speaker 1: as quickly as it appeared. See Sharon confided in at
40:59
Speaker 1: least one close friend that she was pregnant, and not
41:05
Speaker 1: long after the plan to attend Georgia for the scholarship
41:10
Speaker 1: like quietly collapsed. No See, at the time, Sharon believed
41:15
Speaker 1: or was led to believe that pregnancy made college impossible,
41:20
Speaker 1: that she would not be allowed to attend due to pregnancy. Now,
41:24
Speaker 1: whether that belief came from an official policy, misinformation, or
41:29
Speaker 1: Floyd himself, it remains unclear. But what is clear is
41:34
Speaker 1: that no one advocated for her and no effort was
41:37
Speaker 1: made to challenge that decision. Floyd didn't question it. He
41:41
Speaker 1: didn't push back or explore alternatives or support her independence. Instead,
41:45
Speaker 1: he enforced the outcome. College was no longer discussed, as
41:49
Speaker 1: Atlanta was no longer an option, and Sharon stayed where
41:53
Speaker 1: she was.
41:55
Speaker 2: That is just devastating to have that kind of an opportunity,
42:00
Speaker 2: and then oh gosh, okay, I'm like so sad for
42:05
Speaker 2: her here because I also fear that he's going to
42:09
Speaker 2: just like all of a sudden make her his wife
42:12
Speaker 2: or something awful like way worse. I don't know. I'm
42:18
Speaker 2: just at the edge of my seat, really uncomfortable right now.
42:21
Speaker 1: It's an uncomfortable story. It definitely is.
42:23
Speaker 2: It is now.
42:25
Speaker 1: Sharon carried the pregnancy to term, and the pregnancy ended
42:29
Speaker 1: with her being forced to place the baby up for
42:32
Speaker 1: adoption through your private arrangement. What the details were kept quiet,
42:36
Speaker 1: and Sharon did not talk openly about it. Floyd ensured
42:40
Speaker 1: it stayed that way. That way he maintained his control.
42:44
Speaker 1: Now at the time, no one around Sharon knew this
42:46
Speaker 1: full picture. What they did see was a sudden shift
42:49
Speaker 1: in her though. The future she had been working towards disappeared,
42:54
Speaker 1: and she didn't fight it. There was no dramatic confrontations
42:57
Speaker 1: or visible rebellion, she said, stayed there. She followed Floyd
43:02
Speaker 1: and continued to do what she was told.
43:05
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I just want to like punch this Floyd
43:08
Speaker 2: guy in the face. Understandable, I am just not enjoying
43:12
Speaker 2: listening to this about this piece of shit?
43:14
Speaker 1: Well, there's a whole lot more. Do you want me
43:16
Speaker 1: to keep going? I could just stop now and we
43:19
Speaker 1: can do like four parts if you want.
43:22
Speaker 2: How do wout? We just not continue on? Just kidding,
43:24
Speaker 2: I do need to know what the hell happens with
43:26
Speaker 2: this guy. Is just just pissing me off, I know.
43:30
Speaker 1: So with college off the table and a child placed
43:32
Speaker 1: out of sight, Sharon's life narrowed again quickly. Within months,
43:36
Speaker 1: she and Floyd left Georgia entirely. The place where she'd
43:39
Speaker 1: spent the longest stretch of stability, the only place where
43:42
Speaker 1: people had really known her, was now gone, and Florida
43:46
Speaker 1: was next there Floyd would stop hiding who he was.
43:51
Speaker 1: It was in the late nineteen eighties when Franklin Floyd
43:54
Speaker 1: and Sharon Marshall were living in Tampa, and for the
43:56
Speaker 1: first time, Floyd stopped trying to stay invisible. Sharon was
44:02
Speaker 1: now legally an adult, but any illusion of independence, well
44:07
Speaker 1: was just that an illusion. College, her first child were gone,
44:10
Speaker 1: and she had no family, no money of her own,
44:12
Speaker 1: no clear path from the man who had controlled her
44:15
Speaker 1: since childhood. What she did have was this another son
44:20
Speaker 1: named Michael Anthony Hughes, who was born in nineteen eighty eight,
44:25
Speaker 1: and that changed everything. Though we do not know who
44:29
Speaker 1: the biological father is, Michael became the center of Sharon's life.
44:34
Speaker 1: Friends later described her as deeply bonded with him, a
44:37
Speaker 1: tentative and protective in the few ways she was able
44:40
Speaker 1: to be. But even motherhood did not loosen Floyd's grip.
44:44
Speaker 1: And I know what you're thinking, Michael was not biologically
44:48
Speaker 1: his that is known.
44:50
Speaker 2: Okay, See I could I was just going to assume.
44:53
Speaker 1: No that we do know that that was something that
44:55
Speaker 1: would later be confirmed through DNA testing.
44:58
Speaker 2: Huh, that's surprising.
44:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Floyd presented himself as the child's father regardless,
45:04
Speaker 1: and he controlled every aspect of Sharon's parenting movements and
45:08
Speaker 1: the income that she would have, income that came from
45:12
Speaker 1: strip clubs. See Sharon began working as an exotic dancer,
45:16
Speaker 1: not as a stepping stone or temporary job, but as
45:19
Speaker 1: a financial lifeline. Floyd didn't exactly maintain any sort of study, income, employment,
45:25
Speaker 1: or anything himself, so Sharon's earnings as a dancer supported
45:28
Speaker 1: all three of them, and Floyd made sure that she
45:31
Speaker 1: understood that responsibility very clearly. Coworkers later recalled that she
45:37
Speaker 1: rarely spoke about money directly, but it was clear she
45:41
Speaker 1: was under constant pressure to earn more and that failing
45:44
Speaker 1: to do so came with consequences at home. What disturbed people, though,
45:49
Speaker 1: wasn't that Sharon danced. I mean, sure, that line of
45:52
Speaker 1: work may have and still does have a certain stigma
45:55
Speaker 1: attached to it. But the real issue was Floyd's presence.
45:59
Speaker 1: See he regularly into the club, not as a detached observer,
46:03
Speaker 1: but as someone asserting ownership. He also watched Sharon perform,
46:09
Speaker 1: He commented openly about her body in doing so with
46:12
Speaker 1: other patrons. He discussed potential cosmetic surgeries, he pushed for
46:17
Speaker 1: breast implants, and spoke about her appearance as if it
46:19
Speaker 1: were and if she were a business asset. The dynamic
46:24
Speaker 1: made other dancers very uncomfortable, almost immediately too. His role
46:29
Speaker 1: in her life wasn't really understood to her co workers.
46:32
Speaker 1: It was deliberately left ambiguous, and his behavior didn't even
46:36
Speaker 1: resemble a boyfriend dropping by. It didn't even resemble a
46:40
Speaker 1: controlling partner. It felt invasive in ways that people struggled
46:44
Speaker 1: to really articulate.
46:45
Speaker 2: At the time.
46:46
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, Floyd continued to control Sharon. She was
46:50
Speaker 1: driven to private parties and appointments that he arranged. In
46:53
Speaker 1: some cases, he waited outside, in others, he attempted to
46:56
Speaker 1: insert himself directly into the situations. Sharon later told at
47:01
Speaker 1: least one coworker that she could not leave him because
47:04
Speaker 1: Floyd had explicitly threatened to kill her and her son,
47:09
Speaker 1: Michael if she ever tried. Despite this, she continued to
47:15
Speaker 1: present a calm, capable and composed demeanor even with Floyd
47:20
Speaker 1: at the club. Though she was friendly and well liked.
47:23
Speaker 1: She helped other dancers, talked about her son with pride,
47:26
Speaker 1: and rarely complained. What people didn't realize yet was that
47:29
Speaker 1: Sharon had spent most of her life learning exactly how
47:32
Speaker 1: much she could say without triggering any sort of consequences.
47:37
Speaker 1: It was during this period that Sharon met a woman
47:39
Speaker 1: by the name of Cheryl and Comesso Now. Cheryl was
47:43
Speaker 1: nineteen years old at the time and worked at the
47:45
Speaker 1: same club. She was outgoing, ambitious, and talked openly about
47:49
Speaker 1: wanting to leave dancing behind to pursue acting. Cheryl saw
47:54
Speaker 1: the same dynamic everyone else did. Floyd hovering nearby, monitoring
47:59
Speaker 1: Sharon's movements and watching her perform. But unlike others, Cheryl
48:04
Speaker 1: didn't lower her voice or step back. She confronted him,
48:08
Speaker 1: and more importantly, she encouraged Sharon to do the same.
48:12
Speaker 1: Coworkers later recalled that Cheryl openly questioned Floyd's presence and behavior.
48:17
Speaker 1: She spoke up when his control crossed lines, and in
48:20
Speaker 1: an environment where many dancers were accustomed to controlling partners,
48:24
Speaker 1: even violent ones, Cheryl still stood out because she didn't
48:28
Speaker 1: normalize what she was seeing. She pointed it out. The
48:32
Speaker 1: tension between the two eventually came to a head over
48:35
Speaker 1: money and control. By that point, Sharon was receiving government assistance,
48:40
Speaker 1: and at some stage those benefits were being cut off
48:43
Speaker 1: after discrepancies were reported from her not claiming all of
48:47
Speaker 1: her earnings.
48:48
Speaker 2: I just have to say too, Sharon's probably never had
48:51
Speaker 2: anyone like a Cheryl in her life before.
48:53
Speaker 1: No, certainly not.
48:55
Speaker 2: So that's probably kind of like shocking and alarming, but
48:58
Speaker 2: in a good way. Yeah.
49:00
Speaker 1: Yes, she's probably terrified of what could happen between the two,
49:03
Speaker 1: like don't step forward, don't challenge him, that sort of stuff,
49:06
Speaker 1: But she's she knows it's good, but she can't let
49:09
Speaker 1: it happen because she's terrified of the result. Yeah, so
49:12
Speaker 1: it's a dynamic that's certainly going to be new to
49:14
Speaker 1: her and terrifying at the same time, although it's positive
49:19
Speaker 1: now with this whole pay situation, though Floyd. Floyd became
49:22
Speaker 1: convinced that Cheryl was responsible for being the one to
49:26
Speaker 1: report her to the government, that she had, you know,
49:28
Speaker 1: out of spite, jealousy, or whatever had interfered. Whether that
49:33
Speaker 1: belief was true ultimately mattered less than the fact that
49:36
Speaker 1: Floyd believed it, because what followed was a public, loud
49:39
Speaker 1: and alarming dispute between the two. Witnesses later described an
49:44
Speaker 1: angry confrontation outside the club in which Floyd verbally berated
49:48
Speaker 1: Cheryl and then punched her in the face. It was
49:52
Speaker 1: the kind of incident that froze people on the spot,
49:56
Speaker 1: not just because of the violence, but because of how
49:58
Speaker 1: unafraid Floyd's it seemed to be of any sort of
50:01
Speaker 1: consequences that may follow. Shortly after that confrontation, Cheryl and
50:07
Speaker 1: Comesso vanished.
50:09
Speaker 2: Oh.
50:10
Speaker 1: Her disappearance immediately raised concern among workers, but it did
50:15
Speaker 1: not trigger an immediately criminal response. There was no body
50:19
Speaker 1: after all, and Sharon and Floyd left the area soon
50:22
Speaker 1: after relocating to Oklahoma. Whatever answers might have surfaced in
50:27
Speaker 1: Florida needed to disappear behind them.
50:29
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, gracious.
50:32
Speaker 1: Now, in hindsight, Cheryl's willingness to challenge Floyd appears to
50:35
Speaker 1: have sealed her fate. She wasn't simply another dancer. She
50:39
Speaker 1: was someone who saw a pattern clearly, spoke out loud
50:43
Speaker 1: against it, and tried to disrupt it. And for a
50:45
Speaker 1: man whose entire existence is dependent on control, that made
50:50
Speaker 1: her uniquely dangerous to him.
50:53
Speaker 2: Huh. I mean, I was a little bit concerned about
50:55
Speaker 2: her safety, but I didn't expect that she would just disappear.
51:00
Speaker 1: Unfortunately. Why, Yeah, Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
51:05
Speaker 2: Now.
51:05
Speaker 1: After leaving Florida, Floyd did something investigators would later struggle
51:09
Speaker 1: to fully process. He made his relationship with Sharon legal.
51:15
Speaker 1: In New Orleans, the pair obtained a marriage license in
51:18
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. On paper, this was not Franklin Floyd
51:21
Speaker 1: and Sharon Marshall. Instead, the document listed Clarence Marcus Hughes
51:26
Speaker 1: and Tanya Don Tadlock, which later was amended to Tanya
51:30
Speaker 1: Don Hughes. It was one more layer of aliases and
51:33
Speaker 1: a life already built on false identities. But this one
51:36
Speaker 1: mattered more than the rest because the marriage certificate existed.
51:42
Speaker 1: To friends, co workers, and later even law enforcement. This
51:46
Speaker 1: single document reframed everything, because Sharon was no longer just
51:51
Speaker 1: a woman living with an older, controlling man. Now, according
51:55
Speaker 1: to the state, she was his wife, and Floyd leaned
51:57
Speaker 1: into that legitimacy hall He used it to explain their closeness.
52:03
Speaker 1: He used it to dismiss concern, and as a shield
52:06
Speaker 1: against any sort of scrutiny too. What no one yet
52:10
Speaker 1: understood was that Floyd, of course, had raised Sharon as
52:13
Speaker 1: his own daughter, and by the time of the marriage,
52:17
Speaker 1: Sharon was in her early twenties. She had spent nearly
52:19
Speaker 1: her entire life under Floyd's control, beginning in childhood after
52:24
Speaker 1: he disappeared in nineteen seventy five with her, She'd never
52:29
Speaker 1: been given a chance to develop a normal sense of
52:31
Speaker 1: independence or consent. The legal paperwork, however, erased that history
52:37
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the laws system. The marriage also
52:42
Speaker 1: masked something else, though. While living in New Orleans, Sharon
52:46
Speaker 1: gave birth to another child, a daughter just like her
52:50
Speaker 1: first child. Though this baby was quietly placed up for adoption,
52:55
Speaker 1: The pregnancy and adoption remained largely unknown until years later.
52:59
Speaker 1: On go hovered through investigative work that followed a publication
53:02
Speaker 1: of a book titled A Beautiful Child. Now after New Orleans,
53:07
Speaker 1: Floyd and Sharon moved once again, this time to Tulsa. Here,
53:13
Speaker 1: Sharon worked again as an exotic dancer, trying to support
53:16
Speaker 1: herself and Michael while under constant threat. Co workers later
53:21
Speaker 1: described her as anxious but focused, especially where her son
53:25
Speaker 1: was concerned. She talked about wanting something different for him.
53:28
Speaker 1: She talked about wanting to leave, and for this first time,
53:31
Speaker 1: she actually began to quietly plan it. By the early
53:35
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, Sharon had formed a relationship with a college
53:39
Speaker 1: student named Kevin Brown. To those close to her, this
53:43
Speaker 1: clearly wasn't just an affair, It was an escape attempt.
53:48
Speaker 1: She confided that Floyd had warned her repeatedly she ever
53:52
Speaker 1: tried to leave, he was going to kill both her
53:54
Speaker 1: and her son, But despite that, she was still prepared
53:57
Speaker 1: to run. However, she never got the chance. It was
54:03
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen ninety when Sharon Marshall, currently living
54:07
Speaker 1: under the name Tanya Hughes, was discovered lying on the
54:10
Speaker 1: side of the roadway roughly one hundred miles outside Oklahoma City.
54:15
Speaker 1: Grocery bags were scattered around her. They were torn apart,
54:18
Speaker 1: with their contents strewn across the pavement. When first responders arrived,
54:23
Speaker 1: Sharon was convulsive, clearly in shock, and gravely injured. It
54:27
Speaker 1: appeared she'd been struck by a fast moving vehicle from behind.
54:31
Speaker 1: She was rushed to the Presbyterian Hospital in Oklahoma City
54:34
Speaker 1: in critical condition. Her injuries were severe, as Sharon had
54:39
Speaker 1: suffered significant head trauma, including a large hematoma to the
54:42
Speaker 1: base of her skull. Doctors placed her in a coma
54:46
Speaker 1: in hopes that her body could stabilize and recover. From
54:49
Speaker 1: the moment she was admitted. Medical staff were an easy
54:53
Speaker 1: The nature of the injuries raised quiet questions about how
54:57
Speaker 1: accidental the incident truly was. There was some questionable bruising
55:01
Speaker 1: in areas that didn't quite explain, you know, a hit
55:04
Speaker 1: and run situation, though there was not yet enough evidence
55:08
Speaker 1: to classify anything other than a hit and run. Sharon
55:11
Speaker 1: remained in intensive care for five days, and during that
55:14
Speaker 1: time she received almost no visitors. Floyd told authorities that
55:19
Speaker 1: the couple had been staying at a nearby motel six.
55:22
Speaker 1: According to his account, Sharon had left the room on
55:25
Speaker 1: foot to buy groceries while he remained behind. He claimed
55:28
Speaker 1: that he fell asleep and only learned of the incident
55:31
Speaker 1: when he was later contacted. Hospital staff noted that her husband,
55:35
Speaker 1: Floyd or Clarence Hughes quote unquote, insisted that no one
55:40
Speaker 1: was allowed in the room except himself and medical personnel,
55:44
Speaker 1: and so friends who did attempt to see her were
55:46
Speaker 1: turned away, but they gave staff their warning about him.
55:51
Speaker 1: Whatever connections Sharon had outside, you know of her marriage,
55:54
Speaker 1: while they were abruptly cut off. Even as she lay
55:57
Speaker 1: d conscious and fighting for her life, at points during
56:01
Speaker 1: her treatment, doctors believed that she was responding. There were
56:04
Speaker 1: signs of improvement that suggested recovery was very possible and
56:08
Speaker 1: in fact on its way, But then, without warning, her
56:13
Speaker 1: condition deteriorated, and on her fifth day in intensive care,
56:18
Speaker 1: Sharon Marshall died, with no witnesses to the collision, no
56:23
Speaker 1: identified vehicle, and a narrative that technically fit the scene.
56:28
Speaker 1: Investigators treated the death as a tragic hit and run,
56:31
Speaker 1: and Sharon Marshall was officially pronounced dead under a name
56:35
Speaker 1: that was never truly hers. To the system, Tanya Hughes
56:42
Speaker 1: was the victim of the accident. Tanya Hughes was the
56:45
Speaker 1: one who died. But to those who knew Charon, something
56:49
Speaker 1: felt deeply wrong. Even medical staff too, but they couldn't
56:52
Speaker 1: exactly prove anything, and without context, and without knowing who
56:56
Speaker 1: Floyd really was or the life Sharon had been forced
56:58
Speaker 1: to live, well, suspicion alone wasn't enough to stop the
57:02
Speaker 1: story from closing. For investigators, this moment would later become
57:06
Speaker 1: the hinge point of this entire case. At the time,
57:09
Speaker 1: it was just another unexplained death, but it was the
57:12
Speaker 1: last moment Sharon Marshall was seen alive, and the moment
57:16
Speaker 1: Franklin Floyd's long hidden history began to crack wide open.
57:22
Speaker 1: And I think that's where we're going to stop Part one.
57:25
Speaker 2: Of course it is.
57:26
Speaker 1: Of course, what do you mean? Of course it is,
57:28
Speaker 1: but also.
57:29
Speaker 2: Shit because you I listening to this fucking episode. I
57:35
Speaker 2: had completely forgotten the beginning. And then as soon as
57:40
Speaker 2: you brought us back to the freakin' hospital, I was like,
57:42
Speaker 2: all right, like she died here. I was waiting for
57:47
Speaker 2: her to succeed in life and be a like, well
57:50
Speaker 2: she was a badass, really, but to be this like
57:52
Speaker 2: this amazing, I don't know survivor story. And yeah, I
57:57
Speaker 2: forgot that it wasn't so that's really depressing.
58:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I told you at the very beginning you did.
58:02
Speaker 2: And here I completely my brain was just like, nope, no,
58:06
Speaker 2: she's good now.
58:07
Speaker 1: To be fair, I didn't say Sharon. It was Tanya
58:10
Speaker 1: Hughes in the hospital, her alias, right, yes, so at
58:15
Speaker 1: the beginning I said it was Tanya Hughes in the
58:17
Speaker 1: hospital and this is what happened. And then when I
58:19
Speaker 1: got back to the hospital at the end of this part,
58:22
Speaker 1: then under the alias Tanya Hughes when she was married.
58:25
Speaker 1: And yeah, so the entire time I was talking about Sharon. Yeah,
58:28
Speaker 1: well at the beginning and end, it's Tanya. It's because
58:32
Speaker 1: of all these aliases in play, but they're the same person, right.
58:35
Speaker 2: I just have to also comment on one other thing.
58:37
Speaker 2: It's quite interesting how she was allowed to have kept
58:41
Speaker 2: one baby, like a baby boy.
58:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then the.
58:45
Speaker 2: Two other ones that were born, but maybe it was
58:48
Speaker 2: just because they were his. I don't know, if it
58:51
Speaker 2: was like a female thing, I don't know, but how
58:53
Speaker 2: they were put up for adoption.
58:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure either, Like it's that is kind
58:59
Speaker 1: of interest. Hey whatever, we all we know is that
59:02
Speaker 1: he dictated what child she got to keep, and he
59:09
Speaker 1: dictates that with Michael two more than you know.
59:12
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, this, Oh gosh. Okay, So this is just
59:17
Speaker 2: gonna keep going.
59:18
Speaker 1: There's a lot more to talk about, but we'll talk
59:20
Speaker 1: about it in part two, which comes out on Friday,
59:23
Speaker 1: and until then, we appreciate you, guys, thank you for
59:25
Speaker 1: being here. Don't forget to check out the description of
59:27
Speaker 1: this podcast for all the details. The you know, we
59:30
Speaker 1: have our website, our socials, that sort of stuff. If
59:34
Speaker 1: you enjoy the show, we appreciate you giving us a review.
59:36
Speaker 1: It goes a long way and helping support the show.
59:38
Speaker 1: We're an independent podcast with us researching, writing, hosting, recording,
59:44
Speaker 1: produced all of it.
59:46
Speaker 2: It's us.
59:46
Speaker 1: There's no one pulling the strings. And anything you can
59:49
Speaker 1: do to help us, we really appreciate it goes a
59:51
Speaker 1: long way. So thank you very much. Nicole's glaring at me,
59:53
Speaker 1: so I'm going to end this right here.
59:55
Speaker 2: I just hated to see how it was, like we
59:58
Speaker 2: have to wait, but then you're just so cheaper, Thanks
1:00:00
Speaker 2: for being here, and it's just like, yeah, thanks, so do.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: You want me to go? Well, thanks for being here, guys,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: this sucked.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just like you crushed our worlds because
1:00:12
Speaker 2: we have to wait, and then well, thanks for being here.
1:00:14
Speaker 2: It was just like it was just funny. I had
1:00:16
Speaker 2: to chuckle, but honestly, thanks for being here. And the
1:00:19
Speaker 2: wait isn't that long, but.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: You chuckled and then you glare at it. It was
1:00:22
Speaker 1: like a death stare I got.
1:00:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no one, I was just looking at you. Sure,
1:00:28
Speaker 2: So until Friday, stay wicked