True Crime Campfire - The Price of Love: The Murder of Franklin Bradshaw Pt 1

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

All the money in the world can’t buy peace of mind. Family life, with its jealousies and rivalries, carries the same pressures no matter the size of the bank account—but when wealth is measured in millions, those pressures can twist into something far darker. Arguments over favoritism, inheritance, and control—the kind of disputes most families recognize in small ways—become battles with stakes that can determine the course of lives. And when greed collides with resentment, and morality is already thin on the ground, the results can be catastrophic. This week’s story is about what happens when the bonds of family are tested not by love, but by money. Sources:Shana Alexander, “Nutcracker. Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album”Investigation Discovery's A Crime to Remember, S5E8, “Mother’s Little Helper”Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. All the money in the world can't buy peace of mind. Family life, with its jealousies and rivalries, carries the same pressures no matter the size of of the bank account. But when wealth is measured in millions, those pressures can twist into something far darker. Arguments over favoritism, inheritance, and control, the kind of disputes

most families recognize in small ways become battles with stakes that can determine the course of lives. And when greed collides with resentment and morality is already thin on the ground, the results can be catastrophic. This week's story is about what happens when the bonds of family are tested not by love, but by money. This is part one of the price of love, the murder of Franklin Bradshaw. So I got to preface this by saying that I just had some dental work done, and I am currently the proud owner of some temporary falsies. So if I'm lisping terribly this week, I apologize, it is temporary. So, campers, for this one, were in Salt Lake City, Utah, July 23rd, 1978.

The morning started just like any other. Franklin Bradshaw was almost obsessively a creature of habit. He got up at the crack of dawn, had a lukewarm bath, did 31 push-ups, and had oatmeal and evaporated milk for breakfast. Then he brown-bagged a slice of meatloaf for lunch and headed off for work in his old Ford Courier truck, even though it was a Sunday. Frank was 76 years old, and he'd started slowing down a little. It used to be a hundred push-ups before breakfast. And nowadays he usually took things easy and got home around 9 p.m. instead of 11 or 12, like when he was younger. The Bradshaw's had moved into their house on Gilmer Drive 40 years ago, and since then Frank had started every morning, weekends included the same way. Frank's wife,

Bernice, was vaguely aware of the truck starting in the driveway around 6.45, but she wasn't the early bird her husband was and went back to sleep. She was up and about at 10 a.m. when the doorbell rang. Standing out there, all somber, were a police officer, a Mormon elder, and Doug Steele, the manager at the Bradshaw Auto Parts Warehouse and Frank's oldest friend. After Bernice invited them in, the elder asked her to sit down and knelt beside her. We've had a tragic accident, he said. It concerns your husband. It wasn't an accident, though. Frank was always the first of the Auto Parts Warehouse to open up and help out any early customers who happened by.

He was usually alone there for the first hour or so on any given morning. Sometime around 7.30 a.m., he'd been shot twice from behind, once in the back, once in the back of the head. They were each individually fatal injuries, the one in the head, instantly so. The killer had used hollow point 357 magnum ammunition, around sometimes used to kill bears. It had blown off the back of Franklin's skull. It looked like a robbery. The cash register sat open, and Frank's pockets had been pulled inside out. His wallet, open and empty of cash, lay on the ground beside him.

There were no witnesses, no obvious clues. The police had no idea who might have done this. Bernice went with the police to the station house to tell them about Frank and his habits, and like they always do in murder cases, they asked about family. She and Frank had three surviving children, all daughters, none of whom were still in Utah. Two were in New York and one was in Oregon. She was asked if Frank had had any trouble with employees at his auto parts business, but she refused to believe it, describing the employees as all very, very fine, wonderful men.

Franklin was, in fact, well liked by his employees. He was generous with everything except money. The old guy could squeeze a dime till it was one atom thick. The wages at Bradshaw Auto Parts weren't great, but they had a good retirement plan. If an employee's kid needed work, Frank would always give them a chance, and if someone got sick or pregnant, their job would always be waiting for him when they were ready for it, which wasn't and still isn't true of all employers. And Frank always had time to listen to the people who worked for him. There was a very familial atmosphere at the warehouse, which wasn't really a surprise. Frank spent most of his life there, spent more time with his employees,

than he did with his actual family, and you can't really blame him, because they were all each in their own special way kind of nuts. Franklin Bradshaw was born in 1901 in Lehigh, Utah, the youngest son of a devout Mormon family. When he was two years old, parents followed a group of particularly zealous Mormon polygamists up to Alberta and stayed there for seven years before coming back to Lehigh. Despite the sojourn to the wilderness, religion never really stuck with Frank. He was a smart kid and a great athlete.

After high school, his mom wanted him to go on a Mormon mission, but at the same time, the football coach at the University of Utah was telling him he was a lock for the varsity team. This was an easy choice for Frank. He wanted to play football. He promised his mom he'd go on a mission after graduation, and she was so happy she bought him a car. She died of a heart attack in Frank's junior year, and as far as we can tell, he never did go on that mission.

For the rest of his life, he kept up the bare minimum of Mormon observance needed to keep his family off his back. He certainly didn't go in for the traditional 10% tie to the church. It was shortly after his mom's death that a fun-loving sophomore named Bernice Jewett set her sights on Frank, and went after him like a heat-sinking missile. She had both ulterior and emotional motives. In high school, she dated her school's prize catch. a good-looking jock and future Olympian named Arthur Tuck. This guy had gotten into Ripley's Believe it or not

by winning the Oregon State track meet single-handedly. He was the only competitor his high school sent. When Bernice was 15 and Arthur one year older, they got engaged, but good-looking jocks tend to be pretty popular when they go off to college. One time, on his way home to Oregon, Arthur stopped off in Salt Lake to go hiking. with Bernice. Her mom, Florence, was in the habit of looking through her husband's coat pockets, so while the kids were out, she decided to have a rummage through Arthur's too. In there, she found an unmailed envelope, addressed to another girl. Yeah, oh, Mr. Future Olympian's a player. Yep.

Mama Florence steamed open the envelope to read the letter inside, which, man, I love her. It was a love letter. Arthur had written to his other girl. Florence copied out the letter, then resealed it in the envelope and put it back in the co-pocket where she found it. And because inner family communication apparently wasn't invented until sometime in the 70s, Florence put a copy of the letter in Bernice's desk drawer where she was bound to find it. when she did Bernice was heartbroken

she locked herself in her room and cried for a whole day before sending Arthur a note breaking things off she and her mom never spoke about it holy crap that is bonkers you didn't want to maybe like talk to your daughter about what you found oh heavens no that might be unpleasant

I do like that she didn't bother giving the guy a chance to make up some like BS lie before she dumped him though like oh no baby that girl's my sister. We're just real affectionate in my family. Like, she's just like, nope, we're done. Yeah.

Like, on one hand, like, mom's like a sleuth. And on the other, like, she's the most emotionally withdrawn mother I've ever heard of in my life. Like, without being, like, abusive, you're like, here, let me, like, plant this emotional time bomb somewhere in your room for you to find. Honey, have you looked in your desk drawer lately? No reason, no reason, just curious. Oh, my goodness. In college, Bernice was a fun-loving girl who was more interested in dancing than studying. In fact, she was having so much fun that when her parents decided to move to California,

she was determined to stay right where she was. This was 1924 in one of the most conservative parts of the country. She might be 20 years old, but there was no chance of Bernice being allowed to stay in Utah without her parents, unless she was married. Frank Bradshaw was good-looking, polite, and popular. His family owned a bank. He seemed likely to be looking at a pretty bright future. And remember, this is a time when it was incredibly hard for women to have any kind of professional success of their own, so a potential husband's career prospects carried real weight.

Bernice went after him, but Frank had a weird attitude toward college. He was there to study. Well, study and play football, both of which he pursued soberly and seriously. He didn't have much interest in parties or girls, but Bernice was a live wire with sparkling charisma and a high-voltage smile. Even for a semi-aesthetic like Frank, she was hard to resist and soon they were dating. She wanted more than just dating, though. she wanted to get married. Frank said he wanted to finish school first. Bernice said they could keep on studying after they were married. Frank said he wanted to set up in business before he got

married. Bernice said he could marry her and still do that. She kept on at him. Frank would later say that when Bernice wanted something, she was like a dog with a bone. He gave in, and in October, they drove down to Ogden and got married by a justice of the peace. Then the newlyweds drove back to campus where Frank dropped Bernice off at her sorority house and went on to his fraternity. The only people they told about the wedding were Bernice's parents, so they let her stay in Utah and didn't live together until after Frank graduated the next year. So, wow, how romantic, right? Sounds like a great beginning to a relationship. A dancing party girl pressuring a somber joc into a quick marriage to make her own life easier. These two were radically different

people. We've all heard that opposites attract, but in my experience, what they usually attract is trouble. For the next four years, they moved around the western states with Frank trying his hand at various jobs before coming back to Salt Lake City, where he started working for national auto parts. Frank was a smart guy. It was obvious that cars were now a permanent and growing part of American life. U.S. auto sales more than doubled in the 1920s. Also, Salt Lake City sat on one of the major east-west routes with a lot of rough country all around. There was going to be a lot of traffic and a lot of breakdowns and a lot of need for auto parts. He treated his year working for National as an education, then took the same step as so many successful entrepreneurs do. He borrowed a

big old chunk of cash from his wealthy dad to start his own business. Provo, 40 miles south, didn't have an auto parts store yet, so that was where he decided to set up. He and Bernice lived above the store. Frank wanted to offer 24-hour service, and if someone rang the bell at 3 a.m., he'd hop out of bed and go help them. Some of you might be thinking that 1929 was an unfortunate year to try to start a new business. The Wall Street crash was just months away with the Great Depression right on its heels. In fact, Frank was lucky. With tightened belts, people were less likely to buy new cars. They'd try to keep their old ones going as long as possible instead, and that meant auto parts. It was one of the very few industries to flourish during the Depression. It flourished

even more during World War II when car factories were converted to make tanks and planes for the military. There were no new cars to buy, so yet again, people tried to keep the ones they already had running. By the end of the war, Frank had paid off all his business debts. Within a few years, he had 31 stores across the state. He was making a lot of money, and like many such people, Frank hated paying taxes. To lure his taxable income, he invested in oil leases on federal land. This helped his short-term tax situation and ultimately would send Frank's wealth skyrocketing. By the time of his death, he was probably the richest man in Utah, and by today's measure, would almost certainly have been a billionaire. But you would never know it.

The headquarters of Bradshaw Auto Parts, where Frank spent most of his life, was a shabby warehouse in Salt Lake, a maze of parts boxes on cluttered aisles. He and Bernice still lived in the same nice but modest two-bedroom house they'd bought in 1937. Frank got his clothes at the Army Navy surplus store. He lived on oatmeal and meatloaf, and he drove his cars until they fell apart. When he had to visit his stores and other parts of the state, he took the bus. Damn. It's easy to see him as a kind of skinflint.

And while there's some truth there, it's not quite the whole story. He just had almost no interest in things that made life more comfortable or pleasant. Bernice developed a love for travel, touring the world on expensive cruises, and Frank was happy to pay for them. But he didn't go with her, of course. That would mean missing work. Even by the standards of his generation, Frank went to extremes in keeping his wife in the dark about their finances. Bernice was in her 70s before she had an epiphany about the number of stores Frank owned

and realized, hey, we must be rich. After his death in 1978, police asked her, was your husband a rich man? He told me we were poor, Bernice said. Oh, wow. Franklin Bradshaw was cremated and buried three days after his death. Bernice's family wasn't Mormon and she had no strong religious beliefs. Frank's pious relatives were peeved about the cremation. The second coming is central to the LDS church,

and Frank and Bernice's oldest daughter, Marilyn, later said, whereas you don't have to have a body to come back to, it's considered definitely better if you do. Bernice didn't care. She'd been shrugging off Mormon disapproval for most of her life. Back in 1938, the Bradshaw's youngest child was born, a surprise daughter named Francis. She had three elder siblings.

Robert was 12, Marilyn was 9, and Elaine was 7. Bernice had sent all three of them for piano and tap dancing lessons, and all three of them were terrible at it. The arrival of Francis meant there was another girl to enter the annual Shirley Temple lookalike contest at the movie theater. All of them in curled blonde wigs and pink dresses. This was life before TV was invented. To an outsider, this seemed like a happy, thriving young family, but there were already cracks

that would widen into huge chasms over the years. Robert, already tall and strong at 12 years old, had started having epileptic seizures. He and Marilyn slept down in the basement, and when he had a seizure, she'd lay across him on the floor to pin him down and stop him hurting himself. Oh, wow. His seizures were so severe, he'd get bite injuries on his tongue. Bad enough that he had to get his tongue trimmed to, yeah, to help with the scarring. Nine-year-old Marilyn had already been pushed into the role of second mother to her younger sisters,

and now her older brother had joined the party. Elaine had previously suffered from rheumatic fever, an inflammatory disease that her parents thought would be remedied by a trip to Sunny San Diego. She'd soon have a relapse, be confined to bed for two years, and have a permanently damaged heart. Poor little thing. Francis was a difficult baby who would sometimes scream all night until the rest of her family gathered around and sang softly to her for hours to try and calm her down. That is so sweet. This family is a mess, a mess, okay? But that's like one of the sweetest things I ever heard.

Like that image of the whole family gathered around the baby's crib singing to her. That's just lovely, isn't it? More or less, this would be her relationship with their family for the rest of her life. After Frances's birth, Bernice suffered what she called a nervous breakdown, which was clearly postpartum depression. She stayed in her bedroom for months, mostly crying. The births of their children had been a source of tension between Frank and Bernice right from the start. When her labor with Robert started, Frank drove Bernice to the hospital and just left her there, deciding his time was better spent

helping out his parents than hanging around waiting for his son to be born. Bernice was, of course, furious and frank, as was his habit, reacted to her anger by withdrawing even further. For the next three births, he wouldn't even drive her to the hospital, instead calling up one of his innumerable Bradshaw relatives

to drive her there and then back again with the baby. He didn't even have to miss work. God forbid, right? Oof. God Almighty. And I mean, of course, it's like the 30s or whatever, but for the love of God, man, you could at least be in the waiting room for her, like, show her you care. God Almighty. As she grew up, Frances was a Hellion at home and a model student at school, which I think that's interesting when kids do that, because that tells you they can control their behavior when

they're held accountable, right? Like, I think that's really interesting. When Marilyn was left to watch her, be perfectly peaceful and happy, then as soon as she heard their mom coming home, she'd start crying and acting out and accuse Marilyn of being mean to her. In a habit that would stick with her forever, Bernice always took Francis's word over anybody else's. Little Francis needed to be the center of attention, especially from her mother, and she was not subtle about getting it. If she wanted something, she would literally throw herself on the floor and kick and scream until she got it. If you gave in to whatever she wanted, she'd always want more. If you said, no, she'd make your life a living hell.

And if you wanted anything from her, it had to be transactional. In her junior year of high school, Francis's grades slipped for the first time, and Franklin came into her room for a rare chat. He was barely ever at home and much preferred to leave any confrontations to Bernice. Franklin had graduated at the top of his class, and he insisted to Francis that she, had the ability to do the same. He was right about that, but Francis wasn't going to do all that work for nothing. The University of Utah might have been good enough for mom, dad, and her two

older sisters, but it wasn't going to be good enough for Frances. She'd get the grades her dad wanted, but only if he agreed to pay for her to go to a Blue Chip Women's College on the East Coast. Franklin agreed, and as if by magic, the grades immediately became near perfect. It looked very much like the millionaire business tycoon had just gotten played by his 16-year-old daughter. If nothing else, though, Frank Bradshaw stuck to his word, and when she was 18, Francis headed east to Brinmore College. By then, two of her siblings were mostly absent from the family narrative. Although her physical health wasn't good, Elaine was the most clear-sighted of the Bradshaw fan by a mile. While she was still young, she came to the conclusion that for her own well-being,

she needed to keep her family at arm's length. Well, preferably, like, two states' worth of length. She went to grad school in San Francisco, married a fellow student, and lived a low-key but politically engaged life. Elaine had actually met Richard Nixon in 1952, and he creeped her out so bad that he pretty much made a permanent stain on her politics. She and her husband joined the anti-Vietnam War movement

and later published their own magazine to expose corrupt local politicians. Francis, a shit-stirer by nature, liked to shock visitors by saying, my sister married a communist. Although her audience were like Utah Republicans who probably thought JFK was a communist, so by those standards, I guess she was right.

Elaine stuck to the West Coast, barely communicated with her family, and asked for absolutely nothing from her wealthy dad. Frank didn't come to his daughter's wedding in California. Some sources suggest this was because the wedding was at a Unitarian church and Elaine's new husband was Jewish. But those don't seem like things Frank would care about. And he got along fine with Elaine's husband afterward. More likely, he just didn't want to miss work.

And here's the thing is I think if Elaine would have just said, like, we're going to have a carburetor there that you can cuddle with. Like, maybe he would have shown up. But, you know, probably not because there's there were no, there was. There's no paperwork to fill out or whatever. From the age of 12, Robert had two or three seizures every year. It's not quite clear, but it seems like his parents, both of them skeptical about doctors, never actually had him diagnosed or treated during childhood. The attacks usually happened at night, and Marilyn, who slept in the basement, like Robert,

had to deal with them. Years later, in living in New York, any unexpected sound at night still made her sit bolt upright in case she had to help her brother. Oh, wow. When World War II broke out, Robert, then 17 years old, enlisted in a Navy officer training program. That wasn't exactly a picnic, and Robert's seizures were usually precipitated by stress.

Within 60 days, he was given a medical discharge. It's unclear whether he had an attack or if the Navy medics became aware of his other problem, his increasing mental instability. After his seizures started, Robert also started having occasional bouts of extreme agitation where he'd march around, waving his arms, yelling, working himself into a fever pitch. His mental problems only got worse as he got older, and when he was 20, he was committed to a mental hospital. He'd spend most of the next 18 years of his life in similar

institutions, suffering seizures every few days and diagnosed as an incurable schizophrenic. Neither of Robert's parents readily ever grasped what was going on with him, but Frank in particular was oblivious to what schizophrenia was or mental illness in general. He mostly blamed Robert's problems on Bernice, his over-nervious mother. The Bradshaw's were a big letter-writing family with reams of passive-aggressive missives endlessly flying all over the continent. And whenever Frank complained about Bernice to their kids, he always called her over-nervious. Well, kids, your mom's gone hysterical again.

It certainly didn't take much to put Bernice into a tis. busy, but Frank was equally weird in the opposite direction, as stoic as a log. Frank thought all Robert really needed to cure his serious mental illness was to live in an apartment away from his mother and go on regular walks around the block having man-to-man talks with his father. That had set him straight. Don't you know that the cure to schizophrenia, like in hallucinations, is hanging out with your dad. Wow. Okay.

His opinion on the right medicine for Robert doesn't seem to have changed much even after 1952 when Robert had a frontal lobotomy. Ah, he's fine, just a few more chats with Dad in the open air and he'll be right as rain. Oh, man. Robert died of a heart attack in 1966 with idiopathic epilepsy listed as a contributing cause. In 1956, Francis, now going by Frankie, arrived at it. Brinmar College. In the 50s, the archetypical Brinmar student was apparently smart, witty, chain smoking, and hard drinking. And Frankie Bradshaw fit right in. Yeah, she was admired for her ability to hold her liquor, although she was outshined there by one of her friends who was famous

for being able to down seven martinis in a row and still stay upright long enough to sign back into the dorms, get to the bathroom to puke, and pass out in the shower. Oh, college, man. That doesn't even sound fun. It really doesn't. And yet, you know, I remember college. In fact, Frankie quickly got herself a little drinking problem, which was obvious to her classmates, but everyone in actual authority remained oblivious. She was drunk most of the time, but apparently at the time, Bryn-Mar's motto might as well have been,

See no evil, hear-no-evil. As long as it didn't reach the point of scandal, the college didn't care to know what their young women were doing. Our primary source for this story is Shanna Alexander's book Nutcracker, Money, Madness, Murder, and she spoke to one of Francis's classmates who told her, you could screw all night in some guy's car, nobody cared. You could drink all night. It was not considered a crime to be drunk if you could hold it. Just so long as you got back to the dorm by sign-in time, nothing else mattered.

Damn. Obviously, Frankie kept the reality of her college life a secret from her Utah parents. They barely heard from her. When she came back to Salt Lake, she'd just sit there like a bored teenager in front of the TV until it was time to go back to school. She mostly just called her mom when she needed money, and Bernice always gave it to her. This was a trickle that would soon grow into an unending flood of surreptitious checks and transfers that Bernice would bundle Frankie's way whenever she asked for. for it. Her other daughters didn't get anything like the amount of attention Bernice gave to Wild Frankie, who in many ways was the most like herself, and who brought some vicarious excitement

into Bernice's boring old Salt Lake life. After Frankie's sophomore year, Bernice paid for her to spend the summer in a ritzie New York hotel rather than come home. At Gino's restaurant, Frankie and a friend were picked up by a well-dressed Italian dude who took them for a ride in his Mercedes convertible, then back to his place for drinks. Frankie guzzled booze till she passed out. She considered her new Italian friend a gentleman because he refrained from assaulting her while she was unconscious in his apartment. Huh?

Huh? Girl, raise your standards. Thank you for doing the bare minimum and not committing a serious crime on me. Just because I'm drunk in your house. Good God. The man who stepped over this incredibly low bar was Vittorio Gentile, who was Frankie's new boyfriend and before long, her first husband. Before the new semester started, Frankie briefly went back to Utah, where she had her mom pay for a trunkload of new clothes that she had shipped to Bryn Mare. Then, when she was back in New York, she went to Fifth Avenue and spent thousands of dollars on clothes at sacks to replace the ones she just bought in Utah.

She charged the purchases to her mom. And when Bernice got in touch about them, Frankie said her sacks clothes just didn't fit and she was going to take them back. But, of course, she never did. Taking something back was something she was completely unwilling and possibly unable to consider. A little later in her life, she'd get frantic about an eviction notice while wearing a pair of $40,000 diamond earrings. and if anybody suggested she's you know sell them she'd look at them like they were completely insane and a little note here when we said bernice got in touch what happened was that she called maryland who was living and working in new york and had maryland contact frankie because mama

just couldn't handle her special little princess being mad at her poor maryland for god's side i know right who the family fixer i'm that in my family too i get it. Renmar was full of high-strung, high achievers. A lot of the young women there were in near-perpetual states of stress and freak-out, so you can kind of understand why it went under the radar that Frankie, or more specifically Frankie's brain, was in trouble. Just a couple of weeks after the new semester started, Marilyn got a call telling her that

her little sister was in the infirmary. She'd said she wanted to kill herself. She'd been using drugs. she'd stolen things from other women in the dorm, and she'd forged checks. Whoa. The college wanted her to get professional psychiatric help, but Frankie refused, so they wanted her family to get her off campus. Frankie looked like a ticking time bomb, and when she blew, Bryn Marr wanted no fallout

to touch their precious reputation. Oh, God. Marilyn took Frances back to Salt Lake, and a psychiatrist there wanted to commit her to a mental hospital, but unless she went there voluntarily, which she would not, that needed parental consent. Frank was away on business, and Bernice just couldn't bring herself to do it. I'm sure she was thinking about Robert. Once they'd committed him, he was almost entirely institutionalized for the rest of his life. A second psychiatrist agreed to treat Francis on an outpatient basis, at least initially, but then he diagnosed her with psychopathic personality.

disorder. He suggested her parents' hospitalize her, or at the very least, let her face the criminal charges from her recent actions. Let her face some consequences for probably the first time in her life. Frank and Bernice, surprise, surprise, chose their own solution. They did nothing at all. When her parents talked endlessly about what to do with Frances, she was working hard on her own plan. Get back to New York for the world's oldest act of daughterly rebellion, getting married to a guy they wouldn't approve of. Yet again, she bought a whole new wardrobe on her parents' credit and stashed the clothes at the airport. She still needed money for the flight, though. All the Bradshaw kids had spent at least one summer working at the auto parts warehouse. Francis was probably the

smartest of them, and she was definitely the sneakiest. A natural snoop, she'd discovered that her dad, as part of a lifelong war with the evil IRS, had a lot of his financial stock listed under his children's names. All Francis had to do was fill out some fraudulent documentation saying a stock certificate had been lost and get a bank to issue a bond, which she could cash out. Francis wasn't the only born snoop in the family. Bernice, who we know, No, it runs in the family. Yeah. Found the bond in her purse.

And Franklin, for once in his life, blew his top. Apparently, all it took to make him really mad was somebody messing with his money. He's like Scrooge McDuck. Oh, God. He decided to give her what she wanted. He'd march her down to the airport and fly her stealing ass out of Salt Lake. Now remember, this is right after he'd been told his daughter had a serious mental illness. But as we've seen, Frank didn't really believe in those.

Francis didn't have a reservation and the plane was fully booked with Thanksgiving traffic, but she threw one of her old school tantrums, shrieking, I have to get on! I have to get on! At least in the 50s, you could embarrass American Airlines into squeezing you on to a supposedly full plane. Oh, God, she's a proto-caron. Like, you can't give in to those people, airlines? No. Come on.

Hold the line. Like, nowadays, you act like that. You end up pepper sprayed and in cuffs and on the no-fly list. Hell yeah. Can't have any fun anymore. Can't smoke. Can't bring guns on the plane. They don't want you to join that mile high club anymore.

That's a no-no. God. Can't just walk on planes anymore without tickets. It's what is this? A couple of weeks after returning to New York, Francis called home to announce her upcoming marriage to Victoria. A short, flashy Italian pearl importer was nowhere on the Bradshaw's list of dream sons-in-law. And Francis knew it. She was probably hoping for some nice familial outrage.

Yeah, but Bernice was in favor of the wedding, mainly in the forlorn hope that with Vittorio looking after Francis, Bernice wouldn't have to anymore. Bold plan. Let's see how that works out for her. Vittorio, anyway, had money, and he taught Francis how to cook, which is nice, right? There were at least the glimmerings of a normal domestic life there. In January of 1958, they got married in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Frank didn't come to this wedding either. Maybe he was still in high dudgeon. More likely, he yet again didn't want to miss work. This man is. This man has a sickness. I'm sorry. You missed two of your kids' weddings because you don't want to miss work. That is bonnanas. In 1960, Francis and Batorio had two sons, Lorenzo in February and Marco in December. Their marriage had started going downhill pretty much as soon as the ceremony was over, and the stresses of two difficult baby boys only made things worse. Their brief pre-marriage relationship had been based on drinking and partying, which rapidly changed to drinking and fighting. They were both violent, although there's no evidence to support Francis's claims that Vittorio hit their kids.

Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but Francis never had any hesitation or qualms about Lyon when it suited her. In 1963, Vittorio came home to an empty apartment. Francis and the kids were gone, and so was all the furniture. No one has ever called Francis subtle. Across the bare walls, she'd scrawled swastikas and Heil Hitler and Heil Mussolini. Jesus Jones! What a lunatic! Who does this? Unhinged. Just as when she'd planned to flee Salt Lake, Francis had had a plan. Movers and a cleaning woman were ready and waiting when Vittorio left for work that morning, and by the end of the day,

she and the boys were in a cramped, 10th floor, one-bedroom apartment on 89th Street. This is where the boy's first memories are from. Marco remembers his mom. Marco remembers his mom, holding him out of the window. 10th floor, remember, to show him something down the street. God Almighty. Both boys remember a cat named Henry. Neither of them ever remembered Vittorio hitting them, but they remembered that when they spilled Frances's perfume on her bed, she beat them both bloody. The separation from Vittorio started and remained viciously on Francis's part, although Vittorio still said he wanted a reconciliation. Francis said he was a drunk and added that he was allergic to sex.

That must have touched a nerve because Vittorio then claimed he was forced to start work at 7.30 a.m. Just so he could come home at mid-morning every day and, you know, give it to his horny wife. A judge called them both immature and selfish, which was nice. Agreed. Their divorce took four years and was messy and one-sided. Francis, the billionaire's daughter, was determined to squeeze as much alimony out of Vittorio as she could, in large part just to stick it to him, but also because the one solid thing she inherited from her dad was an obsession about getting everything she could out of a deal.

All Francis had to do was conjure up images of her and the boys living on the street, or, my God, in Harlem! and Bernice would hand over whatever money Francis needed for lawyers, whatever, even if she had to sell her own family heirlooms and beloved furniture, even if she had to start sneaking checks and bank transfers behind Frank's back. The money didn't win her any lasting peace with Francis, though. Frank was always tough in business and unwilling to confront his family, but this time he tried to give Francis an ultimatum,

delivered via a letter in which he, as usual, misspelled. her name. Imagine your own dad not being able to remember how to spell your damn name. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. Francis had three choices.

Get a job, go back to Vittorio, or move back to Utah with the boys. If she didn't, he'd not only cut off her funds, he'd testify against her in any divorce proceedings. Francis had long since learned that her dad wouldn't follow through on his most apocalyptic threats, but she was furious anyway and rattled off two letters to her dad. She couldn't go to work, she wrote, without abandoning her children, and she wasn't going

to go back to her husband who was dangerous and mentally ill. Pot, kettle. But, you know, who knows? When she was mad, Francis wasn't much for logical thought. In the same sentence, she said she couldn't bring the boys to Utah because that would take them away from their father. Their dangerous, mentally ill father. Good God. Keep it together. Laura and mercy.

She went after Frank for not coming to her wedding and said he didn't care about his grandchildren. Then she said Frank had beat her, which is the first time anyone had mentioned that, and it was a prelude to her next bit. If Frank came to testify against her, she'd have New York cops arrest him. She blamed her mom for spreading malicious gossip about her and like a mad empress threatened to banish her. I want to use that sometime. You know, like lady at the DMB pisses me off, I banish you.

DoorDash guy forgets my ketchup. Boom, banished. I like that you're just using it for like random like annoyances and not like people in your life. Like you're like cousin or whatever. You know, like, yeah, I guess that makes sense, though. Like people that you'll never see again, yeah, leave. I want you out of my sight. As usual, Francis saved her real fury for her mom.

In the third letter, Bernice's visits made her want to vomit, she wrote. How nice it would be to have a mother who actually cared about her. All Bernice knew to do was try to buy her affection. You say I'm a bad mother. Thank God my sons aren't helplessly emotionally crippled Schizophrenx locked up for life in a mental hospital. Jeez, Louise, nuclear. The letter ended in a way that really makes you wonder

what was going through Francis's head, even 13 years before Frank's death. Most fathers wouldn't talk or act the way dad does, even if their daughter was a murderess. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. When Frank got home, Bernice was a sobbing mess.

Frank wrote Francis another letter in his somber know-it-all-way. Your mother is a very nervous, high-strung person. Of course, one-third to two-thirds of all mothers are. How do you know? You hang out with car parts all day. It is up to the children to understand those nervous traits. I'm like dunking on Frank a little bit, but honestly, like, I would genuinely like to hang out with him a little bit. I think he seems like he'd be fun to talk to.

Like, I just want to know his worldview. I don't think he's a bad guy. I just want to know everything about him. Yeah, I think he was just very. focused on one aspect of life. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, he built a empire. And I think, especially in those days, that was the expectation for the man.

So he said, here you go. Here's all the money I made. Be gone. You know what I mean? And then he's like, what do you mean emotional presence? Right. What is that? That's girl stuff.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, if it seems like I'm making fun of him, I am a little bit. But, like, in the same way, I'd make fun of my grandpa, you know? My grandpa's, my grandpa, actually my grandpa has said one-third to two-thirds of all mothers are nervous, and I did say, what do you mean? But, you know, our girl, Francis, wasn't done. The next day, she called up her mom just to say, Mrs. Bradshaw, you are not welcome in my house. I never want to see you again. Mrs. Bradshaw, good God. That is, you don't even get a first name. You get a dressed for the last name. That is cold. Oddly, this dried up Bernice's tears.

Her crazy daughter needed her now more than ever, she realized. And just like that, the money flow started again. This was the pattern. Bernice would get on at Frank for not forcefully solving the Francis problem. But whenever he tried to just put his foot down, Francis would react furiously, then Bernice would lose her nerve and bail her out again. Neither parents seemed to recognize the pattern, but Francis certainly did. As always, if she caused enough trouble, she got what she wanted.

Frank sent her a detailed accounting of the money he'd cost her. Francis wrote back that she'd gotten yet another eviction notice and they had no food, but she let both herself and her children starve to death before giving them up. There was no point bringing the boys back to Utah. Vittorio would just kidnap them back to New York. I can say no more, she ended her letter. My grief is too great, and my tears are too abundant. Despite her great grief and abundant tears, she managed to get in touch with Bernice, who was in Miami about to leave on a package toward a New Zealand. Nothing could move Bernice like Francis admitting she needed her. She ditched New Zealand and raced to New York to pay the back rent and save

Francis and the boys from starvation. By 1965, the boys, now five years old, were in an odd situation. Little Marco had just started at the Emerson School, a preppy private school just off Fifth Avenue. Lorenzo wasn't at Emerson. In fact, Lorenzo was rarely at home. Later, Marco remembered this explanation from his mom. Mom said he was in a mental hospital. She said he just went ronkers, had a psychotic episode, lost contact with reality,

started smashing his head against the wall. He was institutionalized. When Lorenzo was at home, Francis insisted Marco stay away from him. Lorenzo was sick in the head, she said, and Marco might catch it too. Lorenzo, in fact, had mostly been staying with his Aunt Marilyn,

and her husband, just a few blocks away, or had been out in Utah. Francis, though, had decided she didn't want the boys spending too much time together, that she didn't want to spend much time with Lorenzo at all. God, that's so sad. After Francis had finished thoroughly crushing Vittorio in the divorce proceedings, she had Marco and Lorenzo legally changed to plain old Mark and Larry, two strange boys with an even stranger mother. One of them is going to shoot Franklin Brinzo.

Bradshaw twice, once in the back and once in the head. But for that, and the bizarre decade and a half that led up to it, you're going to have to wait till next week. This one is a banger, y'all, so stay tuned. So that was a wild one, right campers? You know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Susan, Devin, Caitlin, and

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