True Crime All The Time - Joseph Paul Franklin

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

Joseph Paul Franklin was an American serial killer responsible for upwards of 20 murders, multiple bombings, and numerous robberies. Franklin confessed to many different crimes, but his changing stories make it difficult for the authorities to know the exact scope. What is known is that Franklin had a master plan to start a race war and the murders he committed were all racially motivated.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Joseph Franklin. What influenced Franklin in his younger years to lead him to be so misguided about the inferiority of other races? We'll explore his childhood and the details of his crimes.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 84 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, Gibby, how are you? Man, I'm good, man. How about you? Man, I'm good man. Man, I'm good, man. That was a sentence that needed two man's.

That's how good it was. You needed to open the sentence with a man and you needed to close the sentence with the man. That's just how it rolls, man. It's a, you need to exclamation point. That's right. Man. Man. Oh, I give you a hard time.

But no, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I appreciate it. So let's dive right in. We've got some new Patreon shoutouts to give. Aaron Morales. Hey, thank you. Natasha Skion.

Natasha. Jared Foster jumped up to our highest level. Awesome, Jared. Marcy Thrash. Laura Layton. Megan Collins. Thanks, Megan. Sarah Monroe, Samantha, Tommy Schlichting.

Hey, Tommy Schlichting. And then Vicki Terry jumped out at our highest level. It's like first and last name. I mean, two first names there, Vicki Terry. Ricky Bobby? Ricky Bobby. Maria Dallelis. Maria Delalus.

Orla McGrath. That's a tough one right there. Orla. Orla. It's cool. Nicole Flynn. Thanks, Nicole. Eric Pinawell.

Hey, thanks, Eric. Michelle Hampton. Yeah, Michelle. Angela Dalton. Thank you. Brandy Matthews. Awesome. Terry Tokovich.

Thanks, Terry. Julie what? Julie what? Like, what? What? What? And Kara Mitchell. Hey, thanks, Kara.

So a lot of new Patreon support. And then if we go back into the Vault Gibbs, this week we selected Jolene Piercy. An amazing Patreon supporter has been with us a long time. So huge shout out. to her and all of the people that continue to support us on Patreon month after month. We had a lot of PayPal support as well. Mira Sepi. Jennifer Warmuth.

Sepi? Sepi. Sepi. Sepi. And Wormmouth? Wormmouth. Two totally different people, but okay. Terrence Tokovich.

Wait a minute. I'm assuming that's the same person. Wow, that's awesome. Just use Terry in one or Terrence and the other. or technically could be two different people related. I don't know. But I'm assuming it's the same person. We had Maria Fogio.

Fojo? Fogio. Hey, what's up, Fogio? And then Molly Ahern, who donated on behalf of her sister, Katie Bonfa. Yeah. And we just talked about Katie a little while ago. She joined Patreon. She's also a huge fan of the show.

Awesome. Katie had a birthday recently. And Molly is. is her sister. That's cool. Wanted to give her a big shout out. Sisterly love. Sisterly love.

And she wanted me to say that Katie is pretty awesome. Oh, that's really good. She said that Katie would know what that meant. I'm assuming inside joke other than the fact that she's awesome. Yeah. Maybe she's like, I know. You're always awesome. You say you're awesome to everybody.

So I'm just confirming that you are awesome. What are you saying? They got a fur-gibby relationship. Exactly. All right, but a lot of great support. We appreciate it. We also appreciate our people on social media that are, you know, retweeting, sharing our Facebook posts. And then those folks that aren't even on social media, just telling their friends about the podcast. It makes a world of difference. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing with what everybody does. I mean, we've got people grabbing other people's phones and putting it on, you know? I mean, showing them how to download a podcast. And here's where.

what you start with, boom. And then it happens. At the same time this episode is out, make sure you check out true crime all the time unsolved. We're talking about the short family murders in Virginia in the early 2000. You know, mysterious set of circumstances where a whole family is murdered. Yeah. And it goes from there.

It's a sad story. It is. All right. Gibbs, are you ready to get into true crime all the time? I am. This week we are talking about Joseph Paul Franklin, an American serial killer that's a little bit different than most of the serial killers that we've profiled because Franklin's killings were racially motivated. You know, we profile a lot of serial killers that are motivated by sex, motivated by all number of things. His killings were all about race.

Well, to try to get a race war started, a mixed race couples and blacks, I figured if once I started doing it and showed them how other white supremacists would do the same thing, follow suit. So you hope people would copy you? I hope that other white nationalists would do the same thing. So that's Joseph Paul Franklin. We're going to hear from him a couple of times. None of them are going to be good conversations. None of the words that come out of his mouth are going to be good in any way, shape, or form. But this idea of starting a race war.

So we're talking about Franklin, who's a white male that hoped through his actions of targeting the Jewish and black community, he could start a race war. And he started having these thoughts, Gibbs, at a pretty young age. Now, you have to ask the question, how would a young kid get that idea into his head? Yeah. And how does that happen, you know? By reading a book written by one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the earth. Yeah. Adolf Hitler. Exactly.

Does that sound like a good idea? No. No, it does not. But this is the path that Joseph Franklin chose to go down. And this is a man Gibbs who committed probably at least 18. murders, two bombings, 16 bank robberies, and had a number of other victims that were injured and survived. But you know, as you and I always like to do, let's talk a little bit about Franklin's background. He was actually born James Clayton Vaughn Jr. on April 13th,

1950 in Mobile, Alabama. He was the second of four children. His father, James Clayton, Vaughn, James Vons Sr. was an alcoholic who would leave the family for very long stretches of time. He would just say, hey, I've had enough. I'm taking off. I'm going wherever. And then months, maybe even a year later, he would come back. But when he did return after one of these long absences, he would beat his wife. He would beat the children. And of all the kids, the four kids. It was said that it was James Vaughn Jr. who took the brunt of these beatings. And this is not something new for us, Gibbs, right? We talk about a lot of cases that have very similar beginnings to this. Joseph would later claim that his mother was an alcoholic as well.

Now, at the age of seven, he had a bicycle accident that resulted in a head injury. You know, we always like to point out the head injuries. Yeah. It's much more than just a coincidence that a large percentage of people that go on to become these serial killers or mass murderers or infamous people have a history of head injuries in their, in their youth. Yeah. No, you're exactly right. There's no way that can be a coincidence. I mean, there's some correlation between that. There is. And there are people that have done studies on it and there's some information out there about it. Now, on the flip side, there's a lot of kids that have head injuries, whether it's a bike accident, playing peewee football, they go on to be totally fine. His parents would divorce before he turned 10 years old,

so pretty young. And in his 20s, James von Jr. would change his name to Joseph Paul Franklin. And I'm saying it now way out of chronological order so that I can switch to saying Franklin. Because I don't want to say Vaughn, James Vaughn. It gets confusing. We're talking about Joseph Paul Franklin. They just happen to be the same person. Right. And we'll talk about how he changed his name and why and all that.

There was talk that mental illness ran in the Vaughn family. Joseph's brother Gordon wound up in prison. And Joseph would later say, quote, he went completely crazy. And his father died in a mental hospital in 1994. So there is some evidence. Some history. That there was a history of mental illness in the family. Franklin skipped school a lot as a child.

He got poor grades. It's kind of hard to do well in school, Gibbs, if you don't go. You know, I read some things that said that he had an above average IQ. But, you know, smarts is one thing, but if you're skipping school all the time, you're, you're not going to get real good grades. No, you're right. Believe me. I was going to say, I think you might know that at a, at a very intimate level. Joseph enjoyed watching Westerns as a kid, and he dressed up as a cowboy. And not just as a kid, into his 20s, it was said that he dressed as a cowboy.

And he fancied himself when he was playing. You know, we all played, right? Role played as a kid, cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys. Probably role play today. That's a different type of role play. Okay. Yeah, I'm talking about kid role play. That's a different podcast.

That's a whole different podcast. Entirely. We don't even want to get out. I'd have to put on the furry suit. Yeah, yeah. You'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That's a lot of work, man. Yeah, that's, yeah, I don't sign shit.

But this is what Joseph would later talk about. But when he is playing cowboy, he's seeing himself in the role of the outlaw, the Jesse James, the, you know, Cole Youngers. He's not the Rex West of the world. The Rex West. I don't know. But he's not seeing himself as the guy in the white hat that rides in to save the day. Yeah. And this is important later on.

I think he's going to view himself as an outlaw. You don't remember Rex West? No. Who's Rex West? I think you mentioned him before. Yeah. So Rex West is what I wanted to be named because I had a good friend that was named Rex. Oh, that's right.

And I had a, the member of James West, the Wow, Wow West series. Yes. I always wanted to be him. So I wanted to be Rex West. Okay. Yeah. Bad ass country. I've heard you talk about that before.

Cowboy. I get confused with Rex West. and your alter ego, Mike Concho. There's a lot of... Yeah, I know. There's a lot of things out there. There is. Mikey G.

You know? In the, what was it? In the orange crush? In the orange crush? Yeah, I got issues. Nobody's going to deny that. I'm not going to take that away from you. Help me.

But like I said, there's some foreshadowing here because an outlaw is really what Franklin is going to become. But it's as a teenager. So 15. 16 years old, he gets his hands on a copy of the book MindConf, written by Adolf Hitler. And he becomes fascinated by this book. And as a youth, he also dabbled in different religions. And a lot of these religions were considered to be outside of the mainstream. In high school, he was involved in an automobile accident that impaired his vision. And he

dropped out of high school after his junior year. So the injury was not good. You know, it was pretty severe injury, messed up his eyesight. But what it did do for Joseph Franklin was it kept him out of being drafted into Vietnam. Well. So if there was a silver lining to that, I guess that's what it was. In 1968, Franklin is 18 years old. He met and married a 16-year-old girl by the name of Bobby Louise Dorman.

And I use that term met and married Gibbs, but that's about exactly how it went. They married just a couple of weeks after first meeting. That's early, man, 18, 16. And you've known somebody for two weeks? What are the odds on, what are the odds on that thing succeeding? I've known a lot of people that have married young and it's worked out, but you had those two together, marrying very young, somebody you've only known for a couple weeks. I don't think people would give you good odds in Vegas on that one.

No, not at all. And it's not going to last. They divorce after just four months. But the reason why I want to bring this marriage up is because she would later say that very quickly after they were married, she started to see this tremendous change in Franklin. Number one, he began to beat her. So that was a big change, right? Yeah.

That's a huge change. Huge. And you have to think that this stemmed from in at least some way from the, from what he saw his father do. On the rare occasions when he saw his father, because I don't think he was there very much, but he witnessed his father beat his mother. He also was beat regularly at the hands of his father. That had to have something to do with it. But she would also say there were other times when.

she would find him sitting by himself sobbing. Wow. All of this is around the same time that he joined the American Nazi party. So we're talking 18 years old here. You know, the neighborhood that he lived in, which up until this time had been pretty much all white, was becoming racially integrated. Joseph Franklin didn't like that. And there was an anger that was building up inside him.

maybe at the things that he was seeing around him in his world that he couldn't change, right? He didn't have any control over these things that he was seeing as negative. And he's listening to these daily messages that were delivered by, you know, a neo-Nazi leader pumping all of these hatred-filled thoughts into his head. He also became obsessed with another infamous monster, Charles Manson. Well, that's not surprising. Well, he's not picking very good role models. No, he's not.

I don't know how you could get much worse than Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. But with Manson, what really intrigued him was Manson's idea for a race war. Manson talked about that a lot. That was his master plan. So, I mean, Gibbs, you know, far be it from me to tell people what to do. But I think you might be able to find some better role models than those two. you guys. You wouldn't be hard to do.

Just walk into any Walmart. You could find a better role model in Walmart. Yes. I would have never become anti-Jewish if I had not read my income. That is a fact. I don't think anybody could argue with that. Plus the party publications, you know, what was published by the Nazi party, their monthly newspaper, white power, anti-Black, anti-Jewish too.

So it was basically just what I was reading and allowing into my mind. without being able to without the knowledge necessary to refute any of the statements that were made. I just, when you 18 years old, you don't have a whole lot of knowledge, you know, at 19, so I just did not know. I didn't know that what, you know,

how to contradict what Hitler was saying in mind confit. I didn't know other things, so I had to just, I basically just accepted what he was saying as truth. you know but i used to get a real funny feeling though after reading mind comf i don't know why that was so let's dissect that a little bit just a little bit got a funny feeling after reading mind comf yeah maybe that's because the whole thing is full of absolute bullshit but then you know you go back to his statement around you know he's 18 years old he doesn't have the knowledge to contradict what is being said in this book that so he can't on his own figure out that you shouldn't wipe out whole

groups of people not to mention the fact that we went to war to stop this madman for what he was doing so i don't know i just you know that whole part of that interview was really kind of mind boggling to me because this interview's done way later right he's much older by the time that this interview was done, but he's looking back and saying, you know, at 18 years old, I just didn't have the capability to know that that stuff was wrong. I just don't buy it. No. What 18 year old doesn't know that it's wrong to systematically wipe out a group of human beings? Unfortunately, today's world is more than you think. Yeah, you're probably right. I'm very naive even sometimes when I say these things.

But that's why I need you to call me on it. Yes. Now, in the early 70s, Franklin becomes especially interested in mixed race couples. He would later say Gibbs that he would be on the lookout for them. He would confront them on the street, insult, belittle them. This is how he starts, right? This is the start of him going. down this what's going to be a horrible path. And his mother died in 1972. And it was around

that time that Franklin goes all in with this white supremacist movement. Now, he had some scrapes with law enforcement. He was arrested several times in his early 20s. You know, some of these arrests involved racially motivated incidents. He had an arrest for carrying a concealed weapon. But you know, Gibbs. We talk about it all the time. He never really did any time for these. Right. Which these were all slaps on the wrist. And it's at the age of 26 that he legally changes his name to Joseph Paul Franklin. Possibly because he thought by changing his name that these arrests wouldn't follow him. But the story with how he came up with his name is fascinating. So he took the first two parts. from the Nazi leader Paul Joseph Gerbels. He just flipped around the first and middle name.

And then the last name Franklin, he took from Benjamin Franklin. Really? So you can't get two people at more opposite. In the spectrum. So you got Gerbils who was, you know, one of Hitler's kind of right hand men.

I think he was big into the propaganda, right? spreading Hitler's message. And then you have Benjamin Franklin, you know, a patriot of the early United States. I just found that fascinating that that's, you know, his mind, how his mind worked. Right. In choosing this new name that he was going to take. Now, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and he joined the Ku Klux Klan. Does not sound like he sound planned to me, but we'll talk about it. He only stayed in that organization for a few months. And the reason why he said he left Gibbs is because they weren't violent enough for him. The KKK wasn't violent enough for Joseph Paul Franklin.

All they did was sit around and talk about what they wanted to do. There wasn't enough action for him. This is the kind of guy we're dealing with. So this is 1976. This is the bicentennial of the United States. States. Gibbs was 23 years old. You remember it very well. Oh, man, why do you do that to me? I have to do it every now and then. Ten, ten, ten years old. It was ten years old. So he changed his name, he joined, then left the KKK. It was also in this year that he accosted a black man and his

white date, cornered them and sprayed them with mace. Then just to top off the year, Gibbs, he sends a threatening letter to Jimmy Carter. Really? Yep. That's get you on that list. Yeah, that gets you on a list you do not want to be on because Jimmy Carter was campaigning for president. He would end up winning, right? He would become president.

A peanut farmer. A peanut farmer. But everything that Joseph Franklin had been doing was leading up to the summer of 1977. This is really when his reign of terror begins. He started to roam around the country searching for targets. And based on the indoctrination he had received through his readings, his association with the Nazi party and other white supremacist groups, he would target those people that he felt were inferior.

And we talked about that. You know, in his mind, those two groups were African Americans. and people of the Jewish faith. Yeah. It was on July 25th, 1977 that he really starts to put this plan into motion. He blew up the home of a Jewish lobbyist named Morris Amatee using a car that had a trunk filled with dynamite. And amazingly, Morris and his family survived the attack.

Did a ton of damage to this house, though. So terrible. Sure. But when I hear this, my mind on it on. automatically went to stepbrothers when Derek was trying to sell the house and the two brothers were out in the yard and one was dressed like a Nazi yeah well Farrell was dressed like a yeah and he's like I got all kind of fertilizer if you need to get your grass I got tons of fertilizer I mean it's not funny but it was funny yeah I'd tell you not to get too far off the path but

stepbrothers is one of those movies the first time I watched it I was like you know it's funny but it was dumb right but there are movies like that. The more I watch it, the more I see little things that crack me up and I appreciate it a little bit more every time I see it. That's, that's one I like to. It's pretty funny. Yeah, it makes me laugh. Strange that we're talking about that after talking about a Jewish man's house being bombed. Yeah, and I apologize. By a pro-Nazi sympathizer, but I get your point. Yeah. Trying to make, you know, I mean, this is very serious. Oh, this is very serious.

It's scary as shit. And we're going to talk about... Try to keep it light a little bit, you know. Yeah, you got to. It's scary what, I mean, we know where this kind of stuff leads to. We've seen, you know, we can roll up to the Oklahoma bombings. We can roll up. I mean, there's so many things we can roll up to from this.

Yeah. And, you know, there's some parallels to, you know, the snipers from the Washington, D.C. Snipers here. Yeah. Because we're going to get into it. But Franklin does most of his killing. by way of sniping. And that scares me to death.

And we'll talk about it as we get into it. He next targeted a synagogue in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And this was July 29th. So just four days after the attack on Morris Amatee, Franklin rigged a bomb to go off in this synagogue when it was full of people. Fortunately, attendance was pretty light that day. Yeah. And everybody left early.

So by the time. this bomb went off, there was nobody there to be hurt. Thank goodness. It's just a kind of a stroke of luck, really. So we're talking about two attacks, two bombings, using explosives that did massive amounts of damage. But amazingly, no one was killed. Franklin's next target would be a judge in Madison, Wisconsin, by the name of Archie Simonson. And this is another thing that blows me away about this case. Franklin is all over the map. I mean, he is crisscrossing the country. He doesn't go too far west, but from the middle part of the country east, he's all over the place. So what happens is he reads a story in the paper. And this is a story about a case involving two African American men on trial

for raping a white woman. And when Joseph Franklin reads about the case, he gets a mad. He gets mad at the sentence that is handed down by Judge Simonson. He thinks it's way too lenient. And for that, Franklin makes the decision that this judge has to pay the ultimate price. Again, all racially motivated. Everything this guy does is... And he's the judge, juror, and executioner. Yeah. Yeah. And he read about it in the paper. I mean, how much of the real details could he have gotten from this one article. Exactly. But he doesn't care because in his mind,

this white judge was too lenient on two African-American males, bottom line. So he hopped in his car and he drives all the way up to Madison, Wisconsin, rolls into town on August 7, 1997, and he's heading to kill this judge. But as he's driving along, there's a car in front of him that is driving too, slow for him. He lays on his horn, but the car doesn't speed up. Now, inside the car driving was an

African-American man by the name of Alphonse Manning, his 23 years old, worked as a high school janitor. Also inside the car with him was his 23-year-old girlfriend, Tony Schwinn. Well, now, Tony was white, and you know this is not going to sit well with Joseph Franklin. So he laid on the horn again. And this time, Alphonse Manning stopped the car and got out. And he's going to find out what in the heck's going on. Franklin pulled a 357 from under his front seat and he shot Alphonse twice. Then he got out of the car, walked up to the passenger side of the car in front of him, where Tony Schwinn sat. He shot Schwinn through the glass of the passenger side door.

Then he walked back to his car, got in. as he's driving away, he drives by the car in front of him, slows down, and he shoots Tony again while she's still inside the car. Now, there was a witness at the scene that saw the shooting, gave police a description of the man in the car, but unfortunately, the witness did not get the license plate number. Police did recover Franklin's cowboy hat that they would keep in evidence and they would later use this against him down the road. Like I said, Gives, This guy's in his 20s, he's still dressing like a cowboy. Hey, nothing wrong with that.

Well, you know, if it's a pajama pants, cowboy outfit, then it's a problem. Pajana. You know, I mean, I've been over here in the morning sometimes, and you got those funky, you know, toy story pajama pants with the cowboy on it that you like to wear. With my fake six shooters hanging off. Well, I'm not looking at your six shooter, but okay. All you say, I think the cowboy's name's Woody, and I don't know. It's really weird when you start talking about it.

Like, you don't know. characters from Toy Story. I love how you like... Multiple characters? Yeah, I love how you like to play that off. You could probably name every one of them. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah.

To infinity and beyond. I know. Sounds like something Tim Allen would say. It is. Don't act like you don't know, man. But Franklin would later say about these murders. Quote, it just happened to be two people that I totally

hated, so I didn't dislike it. They weren't even human. Weren't even human. It's unbelievable the way that this guy thought. I just don't understand how anybody would not be able to see somebody being human. I don't get that. I don't know how he says that. I mean, I don't care what book you read. I mean, you can clearly see they're human. Yeah, but we know from other cases. There are people, for whatever reason, in their minds that don't view their victims or don't view other individuals as human. But I'm with you, Gibbs. It blows me.

away. Yeah, it's always shocking. So after these first two murders, Franklin drifted around the country and he supported himself by robbing banks. Because that's what you do, man. Well, that's what you do when you're an outlaw. And that's why I made, you know, specific mention of the fact that as a kid dressing up as a cowboy, he saw himself as the outlaw. So now he's murdering people and he's robbing banks to support himself. He robbed banks in many different states, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina. That's just to name a few states. He was pretty successful at it, too. No, he was, because they didn't catch him as being a bank robber. No, I mean, but that's a lot of banks to rob. You know, I mean, today I think it would be tougher.

There's just, the FBI is just so much better at catching bank robbers today. Yeah, and I think he, like I said, I don't think that Franklin was a dumb individual. I think he had an above-average IQ. He would rob these banks and then take off to a completely different state. He was essentially on the run full-time. Like you said, I think he enjoyed that. I think that was his thing. I think he loved being that American outlaw, you know. And not him, he wasn't an outlaw. He was doing, I think he in his mind, he was doing justice for his, for his race. Yeah, there's some truth to that. I. I believe. But I also think he fancied himself an outlaw too because he even started taking on the

names of famous outlaws from the West as aliases. So he's got a lot of going on in 1977, right? He's murdering people. He's robbing banks. But he even found time to join the Alabama National Guard during that year. Now, we mentioned he had an accident that greatly impaired his eyesight. So So what he did was he got a hold of the eye exam. He memorized it and faked his way into the National Guard. But it lasted all of about four months because he was thrown out after being arrested with a handgun that had the serial numbers filed off. And I think the armed forces frown against that Gibbs, as does law enforcement in general.

Yeah, I don't think any legal, you know, police department, whatever, right? I mean, your gun's supposed to be legal. You just can't do that. It's not okay. And it's not going to ever, no one's ever going to be, oh, that's okay. Don't worry about it. You can file that serial number off. They want to track this.

They want to know where it came from. Yeah, because, I mean, if you think about it, who files off the serial numbers of guns, people that don't want to be tracked. And usually people doing that are, that are doing bad thing. Now, on October 8th, 1977, Franklin headed to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, took up a sniper position across the street from a synagogue. With him, he had a Remington 30-Ot-6 rifle. And as these people left the church after a bar mitzvah, he opened fire. He shot and killed one man, Gerald Gordon, 42 years old, and he wounded two others. But I just was just waiting for people

come out during the services and you know I just when I did see some people I began firing on them but I was really terrified though I mean I was scared while I was sitting there or kneeling there I've taken a large nail and drove it into a post telephone pole and then put some socks on it to have something rest of the rifle on you know which is kind of crude you know you know I really didn't need anything to rest of the rifle on. I was very inexperienced shooter, too, at that time. I just started my mission that was in early, you know, in 77,

so I really didn't know how to shoot that well. I later began practicing a whole lot over the next three years and became a much better shot. But at that point in time, I could barely hit the broadside of a bar, and I just learned how to shoot well enough to hit somebody. So, Gibbs, that clip to me is, I don't even know, know what to make of it. It's almost as if Franklin is trying to say why he didn't kill more people than he killed because he wasn't that, uh, you know, that much of an experienced shooter. It was a very

strange. Yeah, it was more of a, well, if I just had more time. Right. I could have did more. I could I could have killed more people. He sure as hell wasn't apologizing for what he did. No, it was more of, uh, Sorry I wasn't a very good aim this time. Now, in February of 1978, Franklin was in Atlanta. When he saw a young mixed race couple, he opened fire on them, killing Johnny Brookshire, 22 years old, and paralyzing 23-year-old Joy William. And it's hard for me, Gibbs, to imagine the level of hate that this man has in his heart.

He's going down the street. spots a black man and a white woman together, and he just opens fire on them. That's just raw hatred. It is. Yep, that's all it is. Raw hatred. But man, nothing to support it. Yeah, but manifested by, you know, mind comp, all these things that he is being fed, this

vitriol from the Nazi folks that he's hanging out with and the messages that he's hearing. Now Franklin decides that his next target is going to be Larry Flint. And yes, it's that Larry Flint. The Larry Flint, publisher of Hustler Magazine. And for Joseph Franklin, this has been bubbling up for some time. Flint had been on his list since he saw a photo shoot in a Hustler magazine featuring a black man and a white woman together in sexually explicit photos. That set him off.

And he found his chance on March 6th, 1978. Flint was on trial for obscenity charges in Lawrenceville, Georgia. So Franklin knew this. He arrived early, scoped out the place, learned where Flint liked to eat. And he found a building across the street where he could set up in a sniper position. So he was set up in that position with a 44 Magnum rifle

on the morning of the 6th. And he's scoping his rifle, looking through the scope. He sees Larry Flint walking down the street with his attorney, Gene Reeves. Franklin opens fire, hitting both men. And Larry Flint would be paralyzed

from the waist down. Reeves would be in a coma for weeks but would ultimately survive. So he didn't, kill either of these men, but, you know, he paralyzed Larry Flint. And everybody can remember that. Oh, yeah. And this other guy, his attorney Gene Reeves, I mean, he was in very serious condition for, you know, a number of weeks. Luckily, he survived. Franklin would later tell investigators that he transported his rifles around in a guitar case. And that's actually pretty smart when you think about it.

Well, hauling him around a guitar case? Sure. Who thinks about somebody walking around? with a guitar case. Not too many, unless, you know, I mean, especially if it's in that type of community that you, you know, got musicians playing a lot, you know, on the corner, local bars and things like that. Yeah, I mean, but you see somebody walking down the street with a rifle case. It's going to be alarming. That's going to catch your eye. While in Alabama in 1978, Joseph meets a 16-year-old girl, they would marry the next year. But on July 28, 1978, Franklin, ambushed an interracial couple at a Pizza Hut in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So I can't emphasize enough.

I mean, he is moving all over the place. He shot and killed Bryant Tatum with a 12-gauge shotgun. He also shot Tatum's 18-year-old girlfriend, Nancy Hilton, but she survived. So the other thing to point out is he's using a number of variety of weapons. He used a pistol in his first two murder. he's used a number of rifles, 30 out 6, 44 Magnum. Now he's used a 12-gauge shotgun, but it's almost a year until his next murder. And I'm not sure why the hiatus.

Maybe it was the fact that he got married. Maybe Gibbs, he didn't have all of the free time that he had before to cruise the country looking for people to murder. But that would change on July 12, 1979. Franklin shot a Taco Bell manager named Harold McIver in Dorrellville, Georgia. And this time he used his 30-0-6 rifle from about 150 yards away. So again, in a sniper position, shot McIver through the window of the Taco Bell drive-thru. Wow.

So, you know, to me, that's scary. That is scary. This is a guy just doing his job. He's not confronted by somebody. He literally is shot from 150 yards away. There's no way he could have even known that this was coming. That's scary to think about people targeting you. You never see them.

And the next, you're dead. Yeah, it's done. The next month, he shoots 27-year-old Raymond Taylor at a Burger King in Falls Church, Virginia. And again, this was another sniper-style shooting. Franklin used a rifle from a pretty good distance to kill. Killed Taylor, who was seated inside the Burger King. This is a guy that's sitting down in a fast food restaurant about ready to eat his burger. And solely based on the color of his skin is shot by a sniper.

Just because of that. No other reason, right? Joseph Franklin didn't know Raymond Taylor, didn't know Harold McIver. He didn't know any of these people. They hadn't done anything wrong to him. except for the fact in his mind, they were inferior because of the color of their skin. On October 21st, 1979, Franklin shoots and kills a mixed race couple, 42-year-old Jesse Taylor, and 31-year-old Marion Brissette in a shopping center parking lot.

And again, another sniper-style killing with the shots coming from about 100 yards away from his 30-out-6 rifle. Now, in December of 1979, Franklin cheated on his wife with a sex worker named Mercedes Masters. And somehow, as they were having a conversation in one of these trists, it comes out that Masters has had interracial relations and Franklin snaps and he kills her. Wow. Franklin and his wife would ultimately separate in 1980. Now, Joseph Franklin struck to her. twice in January of 80 in the Indianapolis, Indiana area. January 8th, he shoots 22-year-old Lawrence Reese in front of a fried chicken restaurant.

Reese was shot one time in the chest from 150 yards away. Later that month, Franklin shoots 19-year-old Leo Thomas Watkins in Indianapolis. And then on May 2nd, Franklin is in Wisconsin. he picks up a student named Rebecca Bergstrom who was hitchhiking and ends up killing her in Mill Bluff State Park. Her body was ultimately found in a secluded park near Toma in central Wisconsin. Rebecca Bergstrom was white, but it would later come out that after she was picked up by Joseph Franklin, she mentioned to him that she had dated a Jamaican guy. And this set him off.

Something as simple as that. And he killed her. In that same month, May 29th, Joseph Franklin went to Fort Wayne, Indiana. And he set up across the street from a hotel where civil rights leader Vernon Jordan was staying. He had singled out Jordan. And he fired a shot that hit Vernon Jordan in the back, but it was not fatal. He survived. So again, there's most of his.

killings are completely random, save for the fact that they're motivated by race. But then every now and then, he picks a very specific target, Larry Flint, Vernon Jordan, just a couple of them. And neither one of those individuals died. Then 10 days later, Franklin is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Just a little bit south of us, Gibbs. Just a little bit. He is on the hunt specifically for a mixed race couple. But he ends up shooting two boys, cousins Darrell Lane, 14 years old, and Dante Brown, 13 years old, both African-American. These two murders, Franklin would not admit to until much later in time, 1997. And he told reporters that he didn't want to end up on death row in Ohio because they had the electric chair. So I know I'm getting ahead of myself.

I kind of have to tell this part of the story here. We know he's going to be caught. He's going to confess to a lot of killings. He does not confess to these two right away because he doesn't want Ohio to get their hands on him, slap him with the death penalty, and end up in the electric chair. He doesn't want to face hold sparking. Not at all. But later on in 1997, he's talking to Hamilton County prosecutors.

And it's only after they tell. him that he can't get the death penalty for these two murders that he confesses to them. Because Ohio didn't have the death penalty in 1980, so they can't retroactively go back and enforce it. They can only enforce what was on the books at the time of the murder. Now, later that same month, June of 1980, Franklin is in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He shoots and kills another mixed race couple, 22-year-old Arthur Smothers, and 16-year-old Catherine McCullough. Again, he would not confess to these murders until much later. Actually, it was at the same time that he confessed to killing the cousins in Cincinnati. This is a very busy stretch for Joseph Franklin. When you think about

May and June of 1980, he kills a lot of people in a very short amount of time. Because At the end of June, Franklin is in Pocahontas, West Virginia, where he kills two hitchhikers, 29-year-old Nancy Santamaro, and 26-year-old Vicky Durian. Both Nancy and Vicky were white, but Franklin would later tell the story that he picked them up. He was going to give them a ride, but he became angry when one of the girls mentioned that she had a black boyfriend. He drove them to a wooded area, shot both of them.

And again, at the time of the murders, nobody knows that it's Joseph Franklin. What's tragic on top of the two murders, which obviously is tragic Gibbs, but another tragedy occurs because they arrest and convict someone for the two murders. And it's a man by the name of Jacob Beard. he would be arrested and tried, but not until 1993. And he's ultimately convicted for the murders of Santa Mero and Durian. Now, at the time, Joseph Franklin had already confessed by 1993 to the two murders. Jacob Beard's attorneys tried to introduce evidence into his trial of Franklin's confession,

but the judge wouldn't allow it. And it wouldn't be until 1999 that Beard's conviction was vacated. He was granted a new trial. And this time, he was acquitted of the murders after his defense team presented a deposition of Joseph Franklin admitting to the killing. Jacob Beard later settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit and was awarded about $2 million. Wow. So that's a lot of money.

but he gave up Gibbs at least six years of his life. Yeah. I'm not trading six years of my life for $2 million. I know it's a lot of money, but I'm not doing six years in prison for $2 million. That's not going to do it. You might do it. I'd probably do it for less. I'll take $100,000 and a three musketeers bar.

That's right. Don't be trying to give me more money. Just give me those lifetime supply of three musketeers. But, you know, we talk about wrongful convictions a lot. I don't know what evidence they had on Jacob Beard. I didn't go that in depth with it. But the judge disallowing the presentation of evidence that stated Joseph Franklin confessed to the crimes, that certainly would have heard his case at that first trial.

Joseph Franklin's last known murders occurred in August of 1980. He killed two black men, 20-year-old Ted Fields, and 18-year-old David Martin. And this time Gibbs, he's all. all the way up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Oh, is he? We got some stuff in the mail this week from Salt Lake City, but we'll talk about that in our mail, mail bot, what we got in the mail section. But again, what jumps out to me is the fact that this guy moves around so much. He never seems to stay in one place very long. And I'm assuming that's one of the reasons why he got away with some of this for as long as he did. But he was arrested on September 25th, 19,

at a motel in Florence, Kentucky. Florence, y'all. Florence, y'all. Not very far from us either. But it happened in a very strange way. The police weren't there for him. It's not like they had a tip that Joseph Franklin was there and he had done all of these bad things and they were looking for them. They weren't.

They were looking for a suspect in another case that happened to be staying at this motel. Joseph Franklin came out of his room to complain to police that the suspect that they were looking for, his car was blocking Franklin's car. Now, if I'm on the run for doing a whole bunch of bad shit and I see a bunch of cops pull into the motel, my first instinct is to not go out there and shine a light on myself. Right. That would be my first instinct. But this is what he does.

and one of the patrolmen is talking with him. He looks inside Franklin's Camero and sees a handgun laying on the front seat. So they arrest Franklin. They take him to the local police station. They interrogate him for about five and a half hours. But at one point during this interrogation, they leave the room. Franklin is alone and he manages to slip out of a window. Not sure how that happens, but maybe.

Maybe don't have a window in your interrogation room where suspects are left alone. Or maybe make sure that they're, you know, handcuffed to the table. I don't know. Do something. I don't know how these people are escaping from police stations. But Franklin cuts his hair. He dyes his hair. And he takes off.

And this starts an all-out manhunt for Joseph Franklin. So I think at this point, Gibbs, they had started to get a little bit of understanding. of just a small piece of what Franklin had done, at least maybe in Salt Lake City for start. But they're not going to catch up to him until October of 1980. And when they do, it's going to be in Tampa, Florida. And again, the circumstances around this second arrest, when they finally do catch up with him,

it's almost like you would say somebody made this up. Because he's in Tampa, Florida. Jimmy Carter is scheduled to come to Tampa on a campaign stop, right? So his first term as president is getting ready to end. The election is coming up. He's going up against Ronald Reagan. Well, we know who wins that election, but he's campaigning. Joseph Franklin walks into a plasma donation center.

You know what that is, Gibbs? I do. So I spent probably too much, a fair bit of time at plasma donation center. Yeah, needing a little extra cash allah. While I was in college, that was one of the ways that I was able to get my beer and pizza money. Yeah. And this is what Franklin's doing. He's donating plasma for money.

One of the nurses at this place recognizes him from a picture that had been passed out. So in advance of Carter coming, you know they do a lot of detailed work in advance. Secret Service, the FBI, the local police, they do a lot of work beforehand, before a president is going to come to their town. Yeah, I remember when Obama came to town, it's the cleanest I've seen in our expressways ever. I mean, they went out and they cleaned up everything on the, you know, in the berms up against the crash wall everywhere. I mean, everything was just spotless. Well, you've got to make it look nice for the president. I guess.

But he came in for those NCAA basketball games. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But aside from making it look nice, they're also there to make sure that, you know, there's nobody that wants to do the president harm. They're worried about his security, obviously. And it's one of the reasons why they had passed out some pictures of Joseph Franklin. Because if you remember, I talked about it early on. Franklin had mailed a threatening letter to Carter years ago before he became president. You know, the secrets. service and people like that, they don't forget stuff like that. If you threaten the president or somebody that later becomes the president, your name's in a file with your picture somewhere. And it's from this picture that one of the nurses recognizes Franklin from, I guess, what were some very distinctive tattoos on his arms. The FBI is called, they come and they arrest Joseph Franklin. And they arrest him as he's walking on his way to cast. the $5 check he got from donating plasma.

And it was said that he didn't put up much of a fight at all. So we talk about some of the things that Salt Lake City detectives were able to put together. They were able to place Joseph Franklin in their state from August 10th to August 21st. They knew that he stayed in at least 10 different motels during that time. So not only is he moving around from city to city in the show. short span that he does stay in a city, he's switching motels all the time. He's being smart. He is being smart.

He was very methodical. It sounds like to me in what he was trying to do to evade capture. They found his fingerprints in one of the motel rooms that they knew he stayed in. And there was a motel clerk that told police that Franklin stormed out without paying his bill. Because as Franklin is quoted as saying, blacks were employed there. That was his reasoning for not wanting to pay his bill. But this clerk was smart.

He wrote down the license plate number and it came back to a 1975 Camaro belonging to Joseph Franklin. Police had another witness that could put the Camaro in the area in Salt Lake City where the two men were killed. And they were also able to match the tire treads on Franklin's Camero to those found near the same. scene of the crime. So they had some really good evidence against him for these two murders that he committed in Salt Lake City. He was extradited to Utah and a jury ultimately convicted him in

state court of the murders of Ted Fields and David Martin in Salt Lake City. And he received two life sentences for that. But Franklin was also charged federally in these two murders for violating both men's civil rights. And he was convicted in federal court on these charges as well and got two additional life sentences. So he got four life sentences for the one double murder. Essentially two life sentences for each man's murder. One in state court and one in federal court for violating their civil rights.

He was also convicted of the 1977 Wisconsin murders of Alphonse Manning and Tony Schwen, for which he received two life sentences. So we're up to six life sentences in two states, Utah and Wisconsin. Franklin started serving his life sentences in the federal prison system in Marion, Illinois. He arrived in that facility on January 31st, 1981. On February 3rd, 1982, a group of African American inmates stabbed him 15 times in the neck. Wow. That's a That is aggressive. That's like, uh, something you see like on that, uh, prison series, Wentworth. That's the Australian female prison. Is that a show? Wentworth? Yeah. I've never seen it. Next, Netflix. You actually said it right that time. Did I get it right? I think so. Play it back, but I probably did.

I think you did. Yeah, but it's out. No, I have to check it out. I haven't, uh, I've, I've been watching this show, Goliath on Amazon Prime with Billy Bob Thornton. How's that? It's good. I've really gotten into it. I just finished the first season. Is he really big? Is he really big? Because he's a Goliath? No, he's going up against Goliath. Oh, is that what he is?

He's tackling. I got you. Yeah, it's pretty good. He's taking him on. But you can't be surprised at this attack by African American inmates on Joseph Franklin. Can you? No. He had to have known.

Shouldn't have shocked anybody. No, he had to have known that he was not going to be welcomed with open arms in federal prison. In fact, Gibbs, he had to be shitting in his drawers. Yeah. arriving at that place because he should have known everybody in there is going to know what he did they're going to know that he targeted African Americans that he targeted people of the Jewish faith they're going to come after him I mean if I was like the run in the prison I would have been like

don't even like make anything too permanent he's not going to be here much longer but he survives wow what sounds like a pretty pretty brutal stabbing 15 jabbs to the neck would be that's pure luck at that point. Yeah, I would think so too. I mean, what are the chances that one of the 15 doesn't, you know, sever the carotid and he just bleeds out? Exactly. In no time. But Joseph Franklin had murdered in many different states, as we've talked about. And that made things very complicated when it came to trying him for some of these other murders. And he didn't confess to all of the murders at the same time. So that, you know, that made it very complicated as well.

You know, we told the story in chronological order, but, you know, police are not going to know about some of these murders or the fact that he committed him, I should say, until much later in time. He was acquitted of the shooting of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, even though later he's going to admit that he did it. But the jury didn't find him guilty. They found him not guilty. He was not tried for the two Indianapolis murders. And I think Gibbs at a certain point, you know, some of these states had to look at the sentences that he already had received. And they had to weigh whether or not it made sense to try him. You know, like we've talked about.

It's a very expensive proposition. It is. And if it's, if you know that they're going to have a successful trial elsewhere, he's going to get life or what her death, then why would you spend the money? Yeah, he already has six life sentences. Two of them are federal. I mean, I think you have the conversation with the, you know, victims family, but outside of that, I think, yeah, why would you pursue? No, and you bring up a really good point. I think you do want to include them, right? Because you want to get justice for them. But I think there's times where, you know, they may not want to have to go through all of that, especially if they know that he did it and they know he's never getting out of prison, they may say, you know, we, we just don't want to have to go through all that and see the pictures and relive all the testimony. I think that's a great point that you're bringing up. Yeah. You're agreeing that it's a great point you're bringing up? Yeah. Okay. As Gibby pats himself

on the back. I'm my biggest fan. Ohio did try him later after he confessed to killing Daryl Lane and Dante Brown, the two young cousins that we talked about. He received another two life sentence. because as I mentioned, there was no death penalty in Ohio in 1980, so that's all they could give him. But he's got eight life sentences at this point. Franklin would later admit that in March of 1979, he shot 25-year-old college student Johnny Noyes Jr. in Jackson, Mississippi, from across the street. He was never charged with that murder, but he did admit to it. And he would eventually confess to shooting Larry Flint and bombing Morris Amate's house. He confessed to murdering Rebecca Bergstrom in Wisconsin,

Ted Fields, David Martin, Alphonse Manning, and Tony Schwinn. And we've already talked about his confession in the West Virginia double murder. He confessed to the Chattanooga synagogue bombing. He started to confess to all types of things. Some of these he'd already been convicted of and some he hadn't. But like I said, these happened over a period of time from 1983 through 1998. He didn't come out all at one time and just say, you know, here's all the things that I did. You know, towards the end is when he admitted to killing Raymond Taylor in the Burger King, Arthur Smothers and Kathleen McCullough.

But the big one came in 1997. And that was the confession of murdering Gerald Gordon. It was big because this was the only murder. for which he received a death sentence. This was the shooting in Missouri that happened at the synagogue as people were leaving the church and Gerald Gordon was killed. Joseph Franklin was executed in Missouri on November 20th, 2013. The execution was scheduled for just after midnight, but as often happens, it got held up because of a bunch of last minute court appeals. He was given a lethal injection at 6.07 a.m.

And he died about 10 minutes later. And if you remember Gibbs, we've talked about this before. This was after all of those issues came out around the lethal injection cocktails. And there for a long time, they couldn't get the drugs. They couldn't put people to death. So I think he probably would have been executed sooner if not for that whole issue with the drugs. Franklin refused his final meal.

So we have no details to talk about on that. You know, like we, we like to talk about last meals. I do like to talk about last meals. But we don't know. He didn't have one. So we don't get to talk about whether it was. I'd have to have mine. Oh, I'm not giving up my last meal.

But he also didn't make a final statement. And I thought this was very odd, given the fact that Joseph Franklin seemed to like to run his mouth a lot. And they're, you know, he talked to a lot of reporters. He talked to a lot of. cops. He spewed hatred in some of his writings and his interviews. But then he gets to the final moment of his life and he's got nothing to say. Larry Flint came out publicly against his execution. Now, he's definitely anti-death penalty. Yes. There's no doubt about that because he came out,

he made a statement that said, the government has no business at all being in the business of killing people. But his other argument was that he thought it was a far worse punishment for Franklin to be confined for the rest of his life. But obviously none of that mattered because the governor didn't grant a reprieve, didn't grant clemency, and Franklin was put to death. Now, before he was executed, in the months, you know, leading up to that, he did a lot of interviews. And he expressed regret for some of the things that he had done, he told many reporters that he was mentally ill. And I do believe Gibbs that in at least one instance in one of the trials where he was evaluated, he was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. But Franklin was quoted as saying, that was not my true self. I was out of control,

out of my mind. He also said that while he was in jail, he was with many African American prisoners. and he realized that his thinking had been all wrong. Well, maybe that was at the point where he was being stabbed 15 times in the neck. Maybe he got tired of not being able to go up to the lunch line and get something without being stabbed by a cork every time that he, that he tried to eat his food. But I think there's a couple of schools of thought here, Gibbs. Either Franklin really did come to the realization that his thinking was not correct. Or he's telling anyone that was.

listen this in the hopes that he'll get a reprieve from the death penalty. And maybe it's just me. I am a massive cynic, but I'm betting on the latter of the two. I'll go with you. I think there are some people that change their ways, change their way of thinking in prison. They have time to reflect. They grow up a little bit, whatever it is. Pure pressure. Pure pressure? Pure pressure? Pure. Pure pressure. Pure. I have to slow it down for you. You do. You northern's sheer pressure. You northern carpetbaggers. You just shot away your whole northern group.

But I do think that, and this is just my opinion, Gibbs, I think there are more people that just say that kind of stuff, you know, hoping that it's going to help them in some way. Even if it doesn't change their fate, maybe it's going to try, it's going to put them in a better light. So just a lot of lip service? I do. I really think it's a lot of BS in many more often than not. I'll say that. That's what I believe. Yeah. I believe it's a lot of lip service. Yeah. I just don't know how many of these people, these horrible people just all of a sudden change their way of thinking. I don't know. Of course, maybe if I was stabbed in the neck 15 times, you change yours? I might change my way of thinking too.

I'm actually really surprised that Franklin made it to his execution, to be honest with you, with prisoners knowing who he was, who he was, what he had done. I can't believe that somebody didn't take him out. Just for street credit alone. Yeah. Well, you're right. And maybe at some point they made it so that they couldn't get to him. But I would have bet money that he would have not made it to his execution. What do you think the odds on that would have been? I give the odds at 10 to 1. Is that prison odds? Let's say, yeah. Okay. That's Vegas odds. Is that Vegas? Okay. You know, they bet on a lot of stuff in Vegas. Yeah, but they bet a lot of stuff in prison, too. They do.

They're just different things you put up for. The rewards are different and the currency is different. Clateral, yeah. And if you lose, the penalties can be often much different. Well, yeah. Sometimes it's who you share your cell with might be up for a bid. But this is a tough case to cover. I mean, there's so many different murders and they happen in, you know, a bunch of different places.

And Franklin is suspected of probably more than 20 murders. I think he's confessed to around 18. But like we often talk about Gibbs, who knows what the real number is? And let's not forget that he had many more victims. He shot a number of people that survived. But you know that their lives were affected by what Joseph Franklin did. I mean, hell, Larry Flint was paralyzed for the rest of his life. So you've got the physical scars.

And you would have mental scars as well from these people that, you know, were shot but survived. Because many of them had their significant other killed right in front of them. You cannot discount that, what that would do to a person. Then there's the families of some of his victims. They spent many years wondering what happened to their loved ones, only to later find out to have Franklin confess at some point down the road. So then they know who did it, but they also know their.

reason why. And I think that would be very tough to take. I think so too. To be targeted solely based on color of skin or the skin color of the person you're with. That, like we said, that's a scary thought. And then you add in this sniper aspect and it becomes a very scary proposition, you know, these murders. Murder scares me in general and it should scare everyone. Well, yeah, I mean, nobody. But there's some, for whatever reason, they scare me a little bit more than others. And this idea of an unseen sniper indiscriminately firing at people and can take you out, that scares me. Yeah, I mean, because that's why that back of the hair on back of your neck stands up, if you ever, you know,

do you have hair on back of your neck? Yeah, that's the one place I have here. I wasn't sure, you know. Mm-hmm. Okay. I like to groom it. Is that the last of the last? I like to put a lot of product on it to make it feel special.

Yeah. Blow dry it. I don't know, Gibbs. A sniper's bullet coming out of, you know, that type of rifle happens so fast. You wouldn't even have time for the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. No. You would, you know, with a shot placed in the right spot, you'd be dead before you knew what happened.

You know, at least if you're confronted by somebody that wants to do you harm, maybe you have a shot. Maybe you can do something about it. Maybe you have a weapon of your own. Maybe you can run away. Maybe you can fend off the attacker. With a sniper, there's no fending off. You don't know what's happening and we'll never know. Unless you've been trained, you're not even going to know where the shot's coming from once you hear the shot. You know, you're here if he misses. But if he misses. But you still don't know where he's at unless you're been trained in that over time. So you don't know where to run. You don't know which if you're running towards him. or away from him. You just don't know. You just got to hope he's a really lousy shot.

And the distances, right? Zigzag. Yeah, zigzag. And the distances that, you know, somebody with a sniper-type rifle with a really good scope can fire from, it can be a pretty long ways away. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's frightening. But that, that's it. That's the case of Joseph Paul Franklin. You know, you hear him talk in some of those clips, Gibbs. Kind of makes my skin crawl a little bit. This guy's vile. He's, he was disgusting. Just the whole thought pattern. It makes me sick. It really does. And ultimately, I, I personally think the world's a better place without him in it. I really do. Oh, I don't think anybody would deny that. All right, Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out. Yeah. Hey, Mike and Mike. A long time

listener, first time caller. This is, this is Randy. from the case. My attention lately was Emma Liley. Get the point. Keep up the good work. Appreciate that voicemail. I think our system was messing up a little bit.

It was like blurring some of the words. It was making it sound funny. Which actually helped the Australian accent. It was way better than yours. She said she couldn't do it. It was ten times better than yours. I just did a

Scottish one there. I don't even know what that was. I don't either actually. It was like, Sean Connery acting. Oy. Oy. How's that?

Boy. Don't make Cambo call in again and rip you for your Australian accent. Boys, guys. How's you doing this? This is Cambo. He has a really cool accent. Yeah. But it's not what I think of when I think of an Australian accent.

No, it's not. Always. I think of like Crocodile Dundee. That's what I think. Grab your chills, boys. He's going to call and rip you a new one. Hey Mike, Gary, Brent, calling from Phoenix, Arizona.

Just want to see you guys do a great job. Love the podcast. Keep up to good work and keep your own time ticket. That was a very fast email. Sucing? Yeah, it was a very fast email and voicemail. Yeah. Very succinct, very to the point.

Yeah. Boom. Get in, get out, boom. You can tell he's successful. He didn't have time to... He messed around. So what are you saying? All these other people that leave voicemail are not successful?

You can tell. He's just like... He's like organized. Now you're going to have to try to dig your way out of this one. He's just like, boom, this is what I got. Here's my 20 seconds. I'm going to say it. Get in, get out.

Done. All you hundreds of other people that have left us voicemails, Gibby saying, you are not successful. That's what I'm saying. I know. Next voicemail. Next voicemail. That is something I'm going to have to put on the list, Gibbs.

Yeah. I actually have some mass murders that I've been working on that I've been thinking about doing. We haven't done a lot of them. And there are a lot of very high profile ones out there that have happened in the past that I've kind of been thinking about doing. Hi, Mark and Givie. I just finished the most recent episode of True Crime all the time and I'm about to jump to the unsolved episode. I love hearing you guys butcher names so you'll get a kick out of mine, which is Alicia Angelica Fernandez-Augamelo.

I also wanted to give you a crime that I've heard on another podcast, but we'd love to hear you guys talk about it because You do such an extensive research, which all of your fans are grateful for, if we acknowledge it. Anyway, the victim's name is Renee Hardvilt, which was murdered by Isaiah Sagawa. Such an interesting crime case because he is now a freeman and it's an author, quote unquote, and artist, quote unquote, and he goes as far as to promote cannibalism. It's such an interesting crime and it's crazy to me that he is now a preman. Anyway, you guys are awesome. You got to thank Minds of Madness, host Beck, Becker.

and Tyler for introducing me to your amazing podcast. Be save and keep your own time taken. All right. That was a great voicemail gift. Yeah, I like that. Try to say her name. Uh, not right now. I didn't think you did. I don't either. I just would, uh, I like the way she says it though. I need to see it spelled out in front of me. Yeah, I do too. But the way she says it, man, it just rolls off and it sounds so cool. It did. And a big thanks to Tyler and Beck, we're huge fans of theirs. And, you know, I know they, we've turned a lot of folks on to their podcast. They've turned a lot of people onto our podcast. That's what's kind of cool about

the podcast community. I know. We've got a good relationship with a lot of them. We do, and it's all, you know, hey, if you like ours, you should listen to this. Maybe one day we're doing a joint venture. Well, I did talk to Tyler at CrimeCon about doing something, so. Hey, Ferg and Gibby,

this is Winston Kimbril. I wanted to call it you guys know that I just had to drop my wife and kids off so that they could go back home. I work in West Texas and the oil field. That was the hardest thing that I've had to do in a long time. And your guys' show is kind of making that easier being away from home and keeping the

brain occupied. Keep up what you're doing. Keep your own time picking. All right, Winston. Anything we can do to help, man. I drink your milkshake. What is that? What is that?

Sins of the father? Sins of my father? I don't know. Blood of the father. Blood of the something. I know it's a movie. It is. It is.

It's the one with Daniel Dayloos that you tried to talk about. I drink your milkshake. It's just so random. Well, he's still in the guy's oil next door. Yeah, I know. I used to watch years ago there was a reality show on about these guys in West Texas that worked on the oil field. Oh, really?

And, you know, it's them doing the pipe and running into like some. It's a tough job, man. Yeah, very dangerous, too. I would almost bet that Winston can handle himself about any situation. I'm sure he can. I actually just watched that Deepwater Horizon the other day with Mark Wahlberg. Yeah? Where...

Oh, the blow-up? Yeah, no, they're out on like... Kurt Russell's in it? Yeah. It's a good movie. They're out on a rig. I was just that good at memorizing movies. Oh, you are.

You are. Hi, Mike and Giddy. This is Christy from the Chicagoland area. A couple things. I was at CrimeCon a few weeks back in National. Bill, and I hadn't become a listener at that point, so I missed saying hi to you guys, but I did start listening about three weeks ago, started with the Susan Smith case and have been listening ever since.

So, oh, Gibby, your dialects, your accents are hilarious. I love it. I'm actually an audiobook narrator for Audible and iTunes and Amazon, and I have to come up with different dialects here and there, and the ones I'm not familiar with, I usually just go on YouTube. and you can figure out how you can learn all kinds and add to your repertoire so that would be fun. I did have a case suggestion and has a little bit of an Ohio connection as well. Vincent Brothers in 2003, he was a vice principal at an elementary school and he drove halfway across the country to murder his entire family,

including his wife, his three very young children and his mother-in-law. But the forensics in the case are pretty fascinating. So hopefully you can get to that. And that's it. You guys are doing a great job. Thanks. Right. She does have a very good voice.

She does have a good voice. If she likes some free lessons, I'll be glad to give them. I don't know what that was. But if you went out on Google and actually started practicing it, it would ruin your accent. That would be the crazy, man. Why would I do that? If you actually got them down.

I just do it myself. Nobody wants to hear you doing them well. Hell. Right. But we'll make sure that case is on the list, too. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Jared Foster from Rochester, New York. I just got to say, you guys have a killer podcast.

I've been digging out from it about a month and a half ago, and I'm hooked. I've been dinging real hard. I'm a big dinger on these True Prime podcasts. I'm a part owner of a brewery coffee shop place here in Rochester, New York, called Fifth Frame Brewing. And I'm in at 4 o'clock in the morning almost every day. And it's what fuels my morning is a little true crime podcasting. So you guys just definitely top of the list, and I can't stop.

So I've been trying to get through all the TCAT episodes. And once I get through that, I'm looking to switch over to TCAT on Sol. I'm pretty excited about that. So, yeah, you guys are great. And keep it up. And, you know, keep your own time sick. All right. Great voicemail from Jared.

4 o'clock in the morning, Gibbs. Brewing up something? Brewing up something. Brewing up something, man. I've barely gone to bed for very long. Do a brew up a gibby, like a gibby brew. And put a, you know how they put that, the milk foam, like in the shape of a heart or whatever? Yeah.

They'll do one with your face in it. Or a K bar? Or a K bar. I'd want to scare people. I'd go visit for that. Well, either one would scare people. I'd go visit for that. Well, sure.

They can put my face as a phone. Yeah. I'd be like, drink it up. I'd just like good coffee. All right, Gibbs. Let's talk about what we got in the mail this week. What we got in the mail? Ashley Valdez, Ontario, Canada, sent us a chip from Hawaii.

Sent you a chip from Hawaii. Sent me a chip. Let's be clear where the chips are going, folks. Sent me a chip. You got some chips too, but sent me a chip from Hawaii if she was on vacation. Carol C., our friend from Portland, sent me some chips and a Harley Penn. Did she? Very cool.

That's cool, Carol C. Wendy Sanders, Cougal. Yeah. Sent some chips from Kentucky. Oh. Which you know I love Kentucky. Just down around the corner. Mary Beth Long.

Yeah. She sent us a whole freaking box. She went crazy. Of things from Salt Lake City. I'm talking hats. Special Salt Lake Salt. Salt. Shot glasses.

Crystal salt. Taffee. With real raspberries in them. She went way overboard. But we appreciate it, Maria. And she sent you chips, too. Oh, yeah. She did send me chips, too.

Multiple. Then we had Britt Bozeman sent a chip from Michigan for me and one for you as well. One for I. So that you would have one. Yeah. Dave Rooney sent one from Newfoundland, Canada. Did he? Yep.

Newfoundland. And it says Mile 1 St. John's. That's an important thing to know. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's right there. That's what we got in the mail. All right, everyone.

That is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.