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He Hunted Strangers With a Sniper Rifle to Start a Race War · FBI Files

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Across the country, young men were being shot down in
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: cold blood. The killer struck unexpectedly. His attacks were unprovoked.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: His sole motivation was racial hatred.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: And after he killed, he vanished.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: When a sniper in Utah started targeting African-American men for death,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: authorities launched a massive investigation. With scant clues and no witnesses,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: they found the odds stacked against them, and they had
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: no idea where the killer would strike next. I'm Jim Kallstrom,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: former head of the FBI's New York office. Civil rights
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: violations fall under federal jurisdiction, so the killings become the
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: FBI's business. The investigation soon grew into a nationwide manhunt
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: for a roving serial killer.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: On an August night in 1980, four youths walked through
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Liberty Park enjoying the last.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Days of their summer.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: 20-year-old Ted Fields and 18-year-old David Martin had just finished
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: choir practice. Terry Elrod had just begun dating David a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: few weeks earlier and had set up her friend Karma
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Ingersoll with Ted. This was their first date. The four
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: had met to jog in the park, but decided to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: walk and talk instead. They were too preoccupied with each
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: other to notice a man watching them through the scope
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: of his rifle. When David Martin dropped to his knees,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the others thought he was joking. Then Terry felt something
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: sting her arm, and she knew he was deadly serious.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Ted told the girls to take cover while he tried
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to help his friend. Then he too was shot down.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Police and rescue units raced.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: To the scene.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: David Martin, barely alive, was rushed to the hospital but
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: died hours.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Later of three gunshot wounds.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Ted Fields, the son of a police chaplain, was dead.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Witnesses told police they heard shots coming from an abandoned.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Building across the street.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But no one saw the shots fired, and no one
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: saw the gunman. Detectives spoke with Terry Elrod at the
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: nearby trauma center where she was being treated for her wound.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: She was still badly shaken, but told investigators.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: What she could recall.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: When she and her friends reached the intersection, she thought
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: she heard firecrackers. David crumpled and she felt a sting
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in her arm. She saw blood, then realized that David
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: was seriously wounded. As she told her story, she recalled
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: something that had happened a few minutes.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Before the shooting. The group was almost hit.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: By a car traveling the wrong way down a one-way street.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But she could not identify the make, model, or license plate,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and she never saw the driver. Salt Lake City Detective
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Don Bell didn't know why the youths were targeted.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: These were young boys. They'd never been in trouble with
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: the police. We didn't have an outstanding motive. We didn't
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: know whether it was something related to the girls, whether
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: something related to the boys, or just a case of
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: mistaken identity.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: In the morning, police returned to the crime scene to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: conduct a more thorough search. In a field across from
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the park, police found tire tracks. Technicians photographed and measured them.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Close to the tracks, police recovered six bullet cases. Witnesses
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: said they had heard the gunfire coming from the abandoned building.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Now detectives believe that what they heard were the echoes.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: The shooter had apparently hidden in the bushes, lying in
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: wait for the forcer to walk into range. Police matched
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the casings to the bullets that killed the two young men.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: They sent the evidence to the FBI Ballistics Lab in Washington, D.C.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: To determine the type of gun.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: The assassin used. That would take time. Investigators tried to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: find other leads to the killer's identity. Bell started with
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the family members of the victims. In particular, Terry Elrod's
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: father seemed like a possible suspect. Teach Elrod led an
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: outlaw biker gang and was upset that Terry was dating
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a black man. The detectives spent three days tracking him down.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: When they found him, he agreed to come in for questioning.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Investigators were very thoroughly He said he'd been on a
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: whitewater rafting trip and that friends could back up his story.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Detectives weren't convinced. They demanded Elrod take a polygraph test.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: He would pass, and his alibi was corroborated.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Police had no more suspects.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: They returned to the Liberty Park crime scene to canvass
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood. One resident, Gary Spicer, told investigators he had
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: seen something suspicious earlier that evening. A car had parked
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: close to his home and he went out to investigate.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: He saw a man packing or unpacking something in the trunk.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Spicer asked what he was doing. but the stranger simply
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: shut the trunk and drove away. Spicer didn't see his face,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: but told investigators that he was a slender white man.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: He described the car as a Camaro with chrome mags.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Detectives thought the information was promising, since the car was
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: parked close to where they had earlier found the tire tracks.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Two days after the.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Murders, police seemed no closer to solving it. Press coverage
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: intensified and community outrage escalated.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: We'd never had a homicide like this in Salt Lake City.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: We'd never had people just gunned down, especially young people
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: gunned down in the middle of an intersection. The general
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: public wanted to know about the killings. They wanted to
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: know if they were race-related.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: With the possibility of civil rights violations, concern grew in
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the Justice Department.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Assistant U.S.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Attorney Steve Snarr was brought in to monitor the case.
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: Members of the black community were particularly concerned and were
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: somewhat vocal about whether this was racially motivated, but at
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: the time there were no clear answers.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: FBI Special Agent Curtis Jensen from the Salt Lake City
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: office was assigned to assist local investigators.
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: When I first heard about this case, I was incensed.
• 9:04
  Speaker 6: It caused a great deal of concern among not just
• 9:07
  Speaker 6: the black community, but all of the community in Salt
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: Lake City. They felt that there was an assassin loose
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: and it could happen again.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: As community pressure grew, test results from the FBI Ballistics
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Lab in Washington, D.C.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Offered investigators a fresh lead.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Examiners determined that the weapon had been a six-shot rifle,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: either a Marlin or Glenfield 3030. After searching gun shops
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and classified ads for recent purchases, investigators assembled 150 weapons.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: That matched the description. They tested each one.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: None had fired the bullets found at the scene. By now,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: it was likely that the assailant had fled.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: The area and perhaps the state.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So the FBI sent out nationwide teletypes to local and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: federal agencies describing details of the crime, including the weapon
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and shell casings. With still no suspects, a $ 50, 000 reward
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: was offered to promote the public's help.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Calls flooded in. All were checked. None panned out.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Most who came forward were after the money and had
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: nothing solid to offer.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: But one showed a hint of promise.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: A young woman claimed she might have met the killer.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: She identified herself as Mickey, a part-time prostitute She was
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: reluctant to talk to police until Detective Bell assured her
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't be charged if she came in for an interview.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: She was actually a struggling college student, and so she
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: would go out two days a week and work on
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: one of the streets that a lot of the prostitutes
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: worked on.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: She told the detective about a man she had met
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: sometime in August, close to the time of the killings.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Mickey was walking down the street.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: When a man in a Camaro pulled up and asked
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: if she wanted to party. She hadn't planned on turning
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: any tricks that day, so she said no. He said
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: he'd make it worth her while. She relented since she
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: needed the money and the man didn't seem threatening. He
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: spoke with a southern accent and introduced himself as Bill Hagman.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: He drove her to the Regal Inn Motel.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: In the room, Mickey noticed that Hagman had weapons. She
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: described two long guns that stood in the corner and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: one silver handgun. Hagman didn't talk about them and Mickey
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was afraid to ask. She also said that the man
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: had tattoos on both arms. On his left forearm was
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: an American Eagle, on the right.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: The Grim Reaper.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: After their stay at the motel, Hagman offered to treat
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: her to lunch, then drive her home. At an intersection
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on the way to the restaurant, he pulled out his
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: handgun and said something she would never forget.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Who's for this guy?
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: He explained that he was a contract hitman for the
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Ku Klux Klan. and said, do you want me to
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: kill those niggers? She says, put the gun away. She
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: was very concerned about what he was going to do.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: He then says, it's real easy. I've done work like
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: this before. You just walk up, you shoot him, you
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: walk on. Everybody's concerned with him falling. No one pays
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: any attention to you.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Mickey was terrified, but was able to talk him out
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: of killing the pedestrian. Afterward, Hagman dropped her at her apartment,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: where he briefly met her roommate. Bell wondered if Mickey
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was reliable or just another false witness looking for the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: reward money. Even if her story was true, Hagman's role
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in the case was unclear.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: Did it have anything to do with her killing or
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: was this just a bad guy that was blowing through
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: town and trying to, you know, make this part-time hooker
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: be impressed with his ability of being a hitman or something?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: If Mickey could identify the long gun she saw in
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the motel room, her story would have more weight. especially
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: if she identified them as either a Glenfield or Marlin rifle,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: which the FBI had determined to be the murder weapon.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Mickey told Bell she didn't know much about firearms and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: didn't look at the weapons for very long.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: The detective insisted she try.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But the guns she chose from the photos didn't match
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: either murder weapon. Mickey's story seemed like another dead end.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Despite his doubts, Bell made an appointment for her and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: her roommate to come back and work with a police
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: sketch artist. Meanwhile, investigators continued to pursue the hundreds of leads.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: That poured in.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Public pressure was mounting. The community feared that the sniper
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: could strike again. And police didn't know that he already had.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Three weeks after the double murder of two young black
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: men in Salt Lake City, the killer's.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Identity remained unknown.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Then the investigation took an unexpected turn. Local authorities received
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a response to the national telec sent by the FBI.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Police in Cincinnati were investigating a similar unsolved double.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Murder that happened two months earlier.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: On a late evening in June 1980, 13-year-old Dante Brown
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and 14-year-old Darrell Lane walked to the candy store close
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to their homes. They never saw the man watching them.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Danger struck quickly. They didn't have a chance. Cincinnati police
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: raced to the scene. They found Darrell Lane dead. Dante
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was still alive, but in serious condition. Both boys had
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: been shot twice. Officers talked to onlookers, hoping someone had
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: seen something, but no one had. Detective Mike O'Brien of
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Police recalls that the coroner provided investigators with
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: their first clue.
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: The coroner responded to the scene and he had already
• 16:44
  Speaker 7: performed a post-mortem examination on one of the young men
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: and was able to tell the trajectory and the direction
• 16:53
  Speaker 7: the shots were fired in.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: The coroner pointed them towards the train trestle 75 feet away.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Police combed the trestle. Among the overgrowth, they recovered four
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: spent rifle casings. Ballistics analysts determined that they were shot
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: from a 44 Ruger carbine rifle. Months had passed since
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the double murder in Cincinnati and detectives had no suspects.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: No one knew why someone would want to kill the teenagers.
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: This wasn't the typical homicide, when you have two children, 13,
• 17:40
  Speaker 7: 14-year-old children, that are shot, sniper-style shooting, with no clear motive,
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: two children on their way to a candy store. It
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: obviously had the city and the neighborhood in an uproar.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: When O'Brien heard about the Salt Lake City sniper, he
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: invited the detectives to Cincinnati. to compare the cases more closely.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: To Salt Lake City Detective Bell, the connection was significant.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: It revealed a breed of killer not encountered before 1980.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Once we were made aware of this information, we were
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: pretty much convinced that we were dealing with the same
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: killer from back east. And this was actually our real
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: first involvement with what is commonly now referred to as
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: a traveling serial killer. this was a new concept to everybody,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: not just out in Salt Lake. It was a new
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: concept anywhere in the country that killers would just travel
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: across the country.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: While police from both states met in Cincinnati to search
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: for answers, Detective Bell in Salt Lake City followed up
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: on the slim lead from the prostitute named Mickey. She
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: told him that she'd spent time with a man named
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Bill Hagman at.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: The Regal Inn Motel.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: He carried guns and drove a Camaro like one described
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: by witnesses close to the crime scene. At the motel,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Bell found a registration card signed by Hagman and dated
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: August 16th, four days before the murders. The address Hagman listed.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Was in Kentucky.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: We had the FBI run the name through their entire database.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: They had nothing on that name. So we felt fairly
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: confident that everything he'd put on this registration slip was fraudulent.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: FBI labs in Washington, D.C. dusted the card for latent fingerprints,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: but found none. They also analyzed Hagman's handwriting and noted
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: some unique characteristics that would make it easy to identify.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: They had no proof he was the killer, but he
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: was the only lead they had. Although it was a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: long shot, a team of 20 detectives spread out to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: search other motels in the area. They carried copies of
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Hagman's Regal Inn registration card, hoping to match his handwriting
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: in the event he used a different alias. Agent Jensen
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: recalls the extensive search.
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: And they conducted a search of all motel rooms from Ogden,
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: which is 30 miles north of Salt Lake, to Provo,
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: which is 30 miles south. And they located about eight
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: motels where this individual had stayed, using false names, each
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: one different, using phony addresses, and using false license numbers
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: for his car.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Local investigators also discovered the suspect had stayed at the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: scenic motel on August 20, the day of the murders.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: It was just nine blocks from the shootings in Liberty Park.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Though Hagman used different names at each motel, the FBI
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: labs confirmed the handwriting was the same. One of the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: cards yielded a fingerprint. But a check in the National
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Fingerprint database turned up nothing.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: Is this one of your motel registrations?
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: At the Sandman Motel, they got another break.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Detectives discovered that his registration card listed a Camaro with.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Its license plate number.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But a second license number was written in the margin
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: by the motel's owner.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: He must have been in his late 70s, early 80s.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: He went out every night around 3 o'clock in the
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: morning and would take all of his motel registration slips...
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: and walked by all the cars and checked their license
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: plate numbers against what were put on the cards because
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: he was so sure that his guests were going to
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: steal a pillow or pillowcase.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: When the owner checked the plates on Hagman's Camaro against
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: his registration, the numbers didn't match. So he recorded the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: correct Kentucky plates in the margin of the card. A
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: DMV search revealed the license plate and the Camaro were
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: registered to a member of a prominent Louisville, Kentucky family.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: The Salt Lake City detectives shared their discovery with detectives
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in Cincinnati.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: They immediately responded to Louisville and made contact with the
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: police agency there and tracked down the actual registered owner
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: of this car. He had in fact sold the car
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: to another person some months before.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: The Louisville man showed detectives the sales receipt. Police took
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: down the name of the purchaser, the car's mileage, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: its brand of tires. But their troubles weren't over. The
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: purchaser had used a false name. The seller worked with
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: a police sketch artist to render a composite of the buyer,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a slender white man with a Kentucky accent. Back in
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, Mickey and her roommate were also providing
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: detectives with a composite sketch of the man who called
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: himself Hagman.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: At the same time, I met with Mickey, the part-time hook,
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: and her roommate. And her roommate was actually an artist,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: a student studying art. And she did a freehand drawing
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: to begin with. And then we asked her if she
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: could work with our composite, and she did. And she
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: put together a composite of this man.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: Hey, Ron, how's it going?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: When the composite drawing from Louisville arrived in Utah, detectives
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: compared the two renderings. They were remarkably similar. Investigators now
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: had the face of the suspected serial. Investigators hunted a
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: serial killer who had murdered two young African Americans in
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Cincinnati and two more in Salt Lake City. They now
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: had a sketch of their suspect, but lead detective Don
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Bell still had no name and no hard evidence connecting
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: him with the murders.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: We didn't have anything to charge him with. However, we
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: did find a motel that he stayed here in Salt
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Lake for two nights. Since he left without paying, we
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: immediately applied for a warrant. which was granted, and we
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: charged him with defrauding an innkeeper or failure to pay.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: We issued that warrant under every single name that had
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: been found on every single motel registration card.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: The FBI entered the warrant, the license plate, and all
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: of his aliases into the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a computer database that links over 57,000 law agencies nationwide.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: On September 25th, 1980, over a month after the Salt Lake.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: City murders, the FBI database paid off.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: When officers in Boone County, Kentucky arrived at a local
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: motel to arrest a pair of jewelry thieves, the manager
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: told them that one of his patrons was complaining about
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the lights and noise from their vehicles.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: Seven, eight police cars in the parking lot with the
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: red lights going and the radios blaring. And another person
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: living in this motel took offense at being disturbed by
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: all this noise and called the manager's office and said,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: what are the cops doing there and how come it's
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: so noisy? You know, I'm going to leave if you
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: don't quiet down. And so the manager went out and
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: approached one of the Boone County officials and said, you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: my tenant is really upset that you're causing all this trouble.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: When the sergeant asked who was complaining, The night manager
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: told him that the calls were coming from Room 80. Perturbed,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the sergeant ran the license plate of the Camaro registered
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for the man in that room. The computer check, tied
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: into the FBI database, turned up the warrant from Utah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Boone County sheriffs went to Room 80. A slender, white
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: male with a southern accent answered the door. Inside, officers
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: saw two shotguns on the bed. They cuffed him and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: brought him in for questioning. This time, the fugitive registered
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: with his real name, Joseph Paul Frank. They notified Salt
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Lake City investigators that they had their man.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Detective Bell and his colleague were on the.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Next plane to Kentucky. But when they arrived, Boone County
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: sheriffs had alarming news. The fugitive had escaped from his
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: low security room.
• 27:08
  Speaker 7: At some time during the interview, the detective briefly leaves
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: the room to get something to drink for this subject
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: and himself. And it's at that point that this individual
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: makes his escape out the window and is gone.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Investigators still held his Camaro, his weapons, and wallet containing
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: his driver's license and photo. Salt Lake City Detective Bell
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: recalled how closely the photo matched the two composites.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: Looking at that license, it was almost eerie. It almost
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: looked like that the composite that had been built in
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Kentucky and the composite that I built out here in
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Salt Lake, that we had done it using Joseph Paul
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Franklin's driver's license.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: The suspected serial killer was still one step ahead. The
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: FBI issued a federal warrant for unlawful flight.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: To avoid prosecution.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Investigators hoped the resources of the FBI could stop the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: killer before he struck again. The fugitive's face and description
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: flooded the media nationwide. Agent Jensen spearheaded the manhunt for
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the FBI.
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: He was almost immediately put on the 10 most wanted
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: list because of the notoriety and because of the seriousness
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: of the crime. The fact that he was a suspect
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: not only in this crime, but in the assassination of
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: a number of black people all across the United States.
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: These were cases that hadn't been solved.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: To make the most wanted fugitives list, Franklin's file was
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: reviewed among hundreds of others. Special agents at FBI headquarters
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: decide the 10 most wanted based on a suspect's immediate
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: danger to society, that the suspect won't stop killing until
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: he's caught. News of the killer's escape brought a flurry
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of sightings, including one from a Kentucky teenager.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: He said a man had.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Offered him $ 100 to take him across the river to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a shopping mall in Cincinnati. Investigators swarmed the mall to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: interview anyone who thought they'd seen him. They discovered the
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: suspected serial killer and purchased new clothes and had his
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: hair cut and dyed. Franklin had changed his appearance and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: still had a soul.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Of cash.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Back in Kentucky, evidence technicians scoured the Camaro for clues.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: They took photos of its tires, hoping to match them
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: with tread marks found near the.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Crime scene in Salt Lake City. they matched. For Detective Bell,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: it was a major breakthrough.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: The tires were sort of a new prototype that were
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: only being released east of the Mississippi. So for tires
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: to show in a dirt field in Salt Lake City,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: they would have had to have been purchased at that
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: time east of the Mississippi that placed that car with
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: that man in our city.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: At the FBI Ballistics Lab in Washington, D.C., Examiners analyzed
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the weapons Franklin had left behind. They hoped to determine
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that one of the guns was the murder weapon.
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: He had two rifles and two handguns. The FBI was
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: able to compare the ballistics of these weapons with the
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: bullets that were recovered from the victims' bodies. These did
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: not match.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: The FBI also searched the NCIC database for criminal records
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and outstanding warrants for Joseph Paul Franklin. They discovered that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Franklin had legally changed his name. His birth name was
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: James Clayton Vaughn. The information allowed investigators.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: To dig more deeply into his past.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin, a suspected serial killer targeting African-American men,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: had escaped from police in Kentucky and was still on
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the run. The FBI had determined that he'd changed his
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: name from James Clayton Vaughn. Agents and local detectives traced
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: his history to his hometown in Birdtown, Alabama.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: They spoke with people who knew him.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: For Cincinnati Detective Michael Bryan, a clearer picture of the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: fugitives started to emerge.
• 32:02
  Speaker 7: Burrtown is described as basically one side of the track
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: is black and the other side is white. And so
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: there was a lot of racial tension in his upbringing.
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: There was a lot of problems between whites and blacks
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: in that area. His mother had relatives that had been
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: in World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. Franklin,
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: at one point, had said he had read Mein Kampf
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: and was very impressed with this writing.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin had selected his new name to honor
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: one of his heroes, Hitler's chief propagandist, Paul Joseph Goebbels.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: The FBI tracked his movements over the previous year and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: found that they coincided with several unsolved bank robberies.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: That's him.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: That's him.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Agents also learned that two years earlier, he had sent
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: a letter threatening to kill President Jimmy Carter because of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: his pro-civil rights views. The president was currently campaigning in
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the South, where Franklin had last been spotted. The election
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: was just weeks away. If Franklin was going to make
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: good on his threat, it would be soon. Detective Bell
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: remembers that the FBI and Secret Service rushed into action.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Well, they decided that Joseph Paul Franklin, also James Clayton Vaughn,
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: was definitely a threat to President Carter because he had
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: written that he would like to kill him. So they
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: passed pictures of Joseph Paul Franklin in every city that
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: the president was going to visit.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: The FBI had to get to Franklin before Franklin got
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to the president.
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: We were able to, through contacting his friends... determined that
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: during the process of his flight, he was selling his
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: blood plasma to obtain money to live on. And as
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: a result of that, we sent bulletins out to all
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: of the blood plasma centers in the southeastern part of
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: the United States.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Clinics across the South received packets from the FBI with
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: information on the killer, now suspected of murder in at
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: least seven states. On October 28th, Franklin entered a clinic
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: in the Tampa area to sell his plasma. The technician
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: prepping him recognized the tattoos from the FBI packet, the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Grim Reaper and the American Eagle.
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: Is this your first time giving blood?
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I'm so dizzy.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Franklin figured selling his blood was safer than robbery for
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a man on the run.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: He was wrong.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: The technician phoned the number the FBI provided. Federal agents
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: surrounded the clinic and moved in to arrest Franklin. This time,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: there would be no mistakes. The killer went quietly without
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a fight. Franklin was taken to Salt Lake City to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: stand trial for the murders.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Of Ted Fields and David Martin.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: But Detective Bell suddenly found the entire homicide case in jeopardy.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: The county attorney didn't feel that we had a strong
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: enough case. It was purely circumstantial as far as he
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: was concerned, and he wasn't willing to go to court
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: on just a purely circumstantial case. It was But the
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: federal government, through the FBI, decided to step in at
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: that time, and they felt that they had a very good,
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: strong case to bring civil rights violations against him.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: A civil rights conviction would present obstacles of its own.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors would have to prove not only that he had
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: committed the homicides in Utah, but that he was motivated
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: out of racial hatred. The FBI held suspected serial killer
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin in Salt Lake City, while federal prosecutors
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: built a case to prove his murders were racially motivated.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Agents re-interviewed his.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Associates, family, and two ex-wives in order to get a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: clearer picture of Franklin's racial beliefs. Agent Jensen sent his
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: team to Franklin's hometown of Birdtown, Alabama.
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: We were able to go back and meet with people
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: that knew him, and we were able to develop a
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: relationship a history of him, if you will, as to
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: what he was like, the fact that he had been
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: associated with the Ku Klux Klan, he'd been associated with
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: the American Nazi Party, the fact that he'd been arrested
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: a number of times for disorderly conduct, and in some
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: instances because he possessed a weapon.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors pursued witnesses who could testify to Franklin's whereabouts and
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: his racist views. At one motel, a manager agreed to
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: speak at trial about his encounter with Franklin.
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: The police had found a motel where he had stayed
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: before the shooting took place, and he'd gone and registered
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: in the office, and then he went to the room,
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: pulled down the covers, and found a black hair in
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: the bed. This upset him greatly, and so he became irate,
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: went back to the office and yelled and screamed and
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: and made a number of racial statements against black people.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Wherever they went, investigators found witnesses who remembered Franklin's car.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Snarr recalls that Franklin's Camaro proved crucial.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: To his case.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: The car that Mr. Franklin was driving was unique. It
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: had a unique color. It had red pinstriping that was
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: a custom kind of striping. It also had unique interior
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: features and non-standard tires and other features that were noticeable
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: to various witnesses who had observed the car in the
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: Salt Lake area.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: The investigative team also interviewed two young women who had
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: ridden in Franklin's Camaro.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: We came up with two girls, a lady by the
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: name of Sandra and another one by the name of Rhonda,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: who actually at 4 o'clock, 4 or 4.30, quarter to
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: 5 on the day of the killing, were hitchhiking a
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: couple of blocks away from the park. This man in
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: the Camaro picked them up and they needed to get
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: to the downtown bank to deposit their paycheck before it
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: closed at five.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: As they got in the car, Franklin asked them if
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: black people hung out in the park. One of the
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: girls who was dating a black man said yes. Before
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he dropped them off, he handed them printed cards that said,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: take off your clothes. Bell sent the cards to the
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: FBI lab, and examiners were able to conclusively match them
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to similar cards found in the glove compartment of Franklin's Camaro.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: The timing of the women's story was also compelling.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: They actually saw him again that night, a block and
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: a half away from the park at 8.30. So little
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: by little, we're putting him almost... in the park at
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: the same time the victims were.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: At the Salt Lake County Jail, Franklin was held in
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a double lockup.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Since he had previously escaped from police custody.
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: Close the door.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: While there, he became friendly with Robert Herrera, an inmate
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: serving time for burglary. Herrera had more recently been disciplined
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: for brawling with a black inmate. Although the fight was
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: not racially motivated, Franklin assumed Herrera held the same hatred
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of African Americans. He looked to Herrera as a confidant.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Agent Jensen recalls the importance of this relationship.
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: He told Herrera, he confessed to Herrera that he had
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: shot the two joggers in Salt Lake City and also
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: confessed to a homicide in Oklahoma City.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Herrera arranged a meeting with the FBI and local investigators.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: He had a proposition for them.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Herrera would become a federal witness against Franklin if the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: state would guarantee his early release. Franklin told Herrera why
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: he shot the couples in Liberty Park. He said he
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: believed people of different races should never mix. When Franklin
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: saw the black men walking with white girls in the park,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: he felt they should die. Investigators were not convinced they
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: could trust Herrera. A confession to a convict would not
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: ensure a successful prosecution.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: You know, we've got one phone, two people.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: We have to coordinate out here, too.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: When investigators requested more information, Herrera told them about Franklin's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: whereabouts following the Salt Lake City murders.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: Well, I can tell you what he did after the shootings.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: He did the shootings.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: He left here.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: He went north to a town north of Salt Lake, Ogden.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: He took the freeway across Nevada through Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Reno,
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: and into San Francisco, and he sold the rifle that
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: he killed the kids at a flea market. outside of
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: the Bay Area.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Agents and local investigators needed to confirm Herrera's story. If
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: they could find the rifle Franklin had used in Liberty Park,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: investigators would have the piece they were missing. Detective Bell
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: sent his team to the flea market outside San Francisco.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: They interviewed gun dealers and other witnesses.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: So they saturated the flea market, and they did come
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: up with witnesses who remembered Joseph Paul Franklin and remembered
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: that he was selling guns. But we could never find
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: the gun.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Even without the weapon, Herrera's story was confirmed. Franklin's movements
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: following the murders would be critical for the prosecution.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: Well, this was pretty good information because we'd never been able,
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: the FBI, ourselves, no one had ever been able to
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: find out where Mr. Franklin had gone after doing the killing.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: After agents corroborated his story, they met with Herrera again.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: He told investigators about other crimes Franklin confessed to. Franklin
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: admitted shooting Hustler publisher Larry Flint, crippling him in 1977
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: for portraying black men with white women in his magazine.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Franklin also said he shot Vernon Jordan, the president of
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the National Urban League in May of 1980. Federal prosecutors
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: felt they had enough to bring the civil rights case
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to trial.
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: Well, the prosecution was an involved prosecution involving 65 witnesses
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: and approximately 100 different exhibits. However, we managed to expedite
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: the case and move things along and telling our story
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: and recreating the actions and things that took place. The
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: trial lasted five and a half days, and we were done.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: The jury deliberated just five hours, finding Joseph Paul Franklin
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: guilty of the federal civil rights violations. The judge sentenced
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: him to two life terms. Franklin was furious that he
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: was going to prison for the rest of his life,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: but more so because an African-American prosecutor helped put him there.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: In a rage, Franklin jumped out of his chair and
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: threw water on the attorney.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: He was quickly subdued by the marshals and carted away.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: In an interview following his sentencing, Franklin finally admitted to
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: investigators what motivated the killings in Utah and across the country.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: He said himself that he is a racist, that he
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: had a plan to assassinate as many blacks as he could.
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: This was his whole purpose.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: After the successful federal trial, the Salt Lake County prosecutor
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: felt he could win a state homicide case against Franklin.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Franklin was escorted to the courthouse where he had spent
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the last two months during the federal trial. During a recess,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: he was left unattended in a holding room. Before the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: court officer returned, he freed himself and pried the door
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: off its hinges.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Franklin had escaped.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: No one knew how he had escaped from the holding cell.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: But when the jailers went to bring him back into
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: court before the jury came in, he wasn't in the
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: conference room.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It looked as if Joseph Paul Franklin was free once
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: again to continue his path of terror. The elevator was
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: his only way out and only operable with a guard's key.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: But a marshal found the control panel dismantled. Franklin had
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: hot-wired it using only a dime and a paper clip He.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: Was able to take the plate off the elevator, the
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: prisoner elevator, and strip the wires and call the elevator
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: to that floor. And then he disappeared.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Police closed off the streets as jailers searched the courthouse
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: for the fugitives.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: The rest of us, we immediately put out an area-wide
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: alert that this man had escaped, and we brought every
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: available officer there there was scouring the downtown area. the
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: same time, the jailer decided that maybe he'd noticed that
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: the top panel on the elevator had been loosened. So
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: he climbed up on top of the elevator and noticed
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: some movement in the dust and thought, well, somehow he's
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: in this building. So that particular jailer started crawling every
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: single air duct in the courthouse.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: He found him.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Franklin scurried like a rat in the duct always remaining
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: out of his reach. But when Franklin came to the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: end of the duct, the second guard was waiting. He
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: was back in custody within an hour.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: We cleaned him off and combed his hair and brought
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: him back in. And the jury was none the wiser.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: They just got an extra hour for lunch.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Over his next 17 years in prison, Franklin confessed to
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: 16 murders in eight states. In all that time, he
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: never admitted to the double homicide in Cincinnati. Detective Mike
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: O'Brien never gave up.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: He continued to build his case.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Hoping to convict Franklin of the Cincinnati murders. O'Brien's break
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: came when he was able to convince Franklin to interview
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: with Melissa Powers, an assistant district attorney from Cincinnati.
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: The minute that Mr. Franklin walked in the room and
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: sat down and Ms. Powers introduced herself, told him who
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: she was, why she was there, he said, you know,
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: I did it. I killed those two kids in Cincinnati
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: immediately as he sat down. which was what I've been
• 48:22
  Speaker 7: trying to get him to do for some 17 years,
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: he did in a matter of about 30 seconds.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: In 1998, Franklin received two more life sentences for the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Cincinnati murders. In Missouri, he was sentenced to death for
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: two others. Franklin would never have another opportunity to escape.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Detective Don Bell remained haunted by Franklin's rampage of violence.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: And I don't understand this type of killer, that he
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: would actually just take a complete stranger, and because of
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: their race and who they were standing by or talking to,
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: he would feel it necessary to kill them. He's one
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: of those few people that I just have absolutely no
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: explanation for, and it's still hard for me to understand.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: For the families of Franklin's victims, peace had finally come.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Franklin would never be free to kill again.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Bye.