Franklin Delano Floyd

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Franklin Delano Floyd (born June 17, 1943 in Barnesville , Georgia ) is a death sentence American murderer , sex offender , kidnapper and alleged serial killer .

As a teenager, he was convicted of kidnapping and sexual abuse of a girl in Georgia and imprisoned for ten years. Shortly after his release in 1972, he sexually molested a woman and then lived as a fugitive for 17 years under various aliases . In 1974 he married a mother of four in North Carolina , who was imprisoned for 30 days in 1975. During this time he left with their children. The mother later found two girls at the local welfare, her male infant disappeared forever, and her daughter Suzanne Marie Sevakis took Floyd with her. He also procured various aliases for her and first passed her off as his own daughter before marrying her in 1989. He sexually abused Sevakis until her unexplained death in April 1990. In the same year he was arrested as Franklin Delano Floyd and his false identities were gradually being exposed. While in custody he fought for custody of Sevaki's son and stepchild Michael Anthony Hughes and kidnapped the six-year-old after his release from school in 1994. Floyd was arrested alone weeks later in Louisville , Kentucky and even after his arrest he kept the fate of the boy a secret, who was never seen again. Investigators assumed that he had killed the boy.

For the abduction of Hughes, Floyd was sentenced to over 50 years in prison in 1995 . In 2003 he was for the premeditated murder sentenced to Sevakis colleague Cheryl Ann Commesso in 1989 to death and waiting since the Florida State Prison for his execution by lethal injection . In addition, Floyd is believed to be the prime suspect in Sevakis' death and did not reveal her real identity to FBI agents until 2014 . This had not been clarified for decades because her mother had never filed a missing person report. In addition, he admitted to having murdered Michael Anthony Hughes with two headshots on the day of his kidnapping.

The crimes and life of Franklin Delano Floyd received a great reception in the United States in the 1990s, but the case is almost unknown in German-speaking countries.

Early life

Origin, childhood and youth

Franklin Delano Floyd was born in Barnesville , Georgia and was the youngest of five children of married couples Thomas H. (* 1912) and Della Jewel Floyd (* 1916). He received the two first names of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died two years later . His father worked in a cotton mill, was severely addicted to alcohol and regularly beat his wife and children. Shortly after Franklin's first birthday, he died of kidney and liver failure . As a result, his mother was overwhelmed and unable to raise the children on her own, which is why she had to give up all of them. As a toddler, he and his siblings moved to the Georgia Baptist Children's Home in Hapeville , Georgia in 1946 . There they were separated from each other and brought together with children in their age groups. Floyd later described his childhood at home as torture. He was regularly the target of psychological and physical attacks from the other children in the home because of his feminine behavior. For example, when he was six years old, a broom was inserted into his anus . As a teenager he was often conspicuous as a thief and thug . As a result, he regularly received severe punishments from home carers. In the Baptist home, any violation of the strict rules was usually punished. When he was found masturbating in his room as a teenager , he was forced to dip his hand in hot water. He was later also flogged. He was forced to leave home at 16 and moved in with his sister Dorothy because he broke out and stole food in a neighborhood house.

Floyd also caused problems with his sister and was soon thrown out of her home by her too. He went to Indianapolis , Indiana , to look for his birth mother, Della. He found her, but had to learn that she was now engaged in prostitution . With Della's help, he obtained forged papers and enrolled in the US Army in California , where he was discovered as a minor and released after six months. He tried again to get in touch with his mother, but couldn't find her and wandered the States as a drift.

First criminal offenses and imprisonment

On February 19, 1960, 16-year-old Floyd broke into a Sears department store in Inglewood , California, to get a gun. The alerted police were quickly on the scene. The situation escalated and resulted in an exchange of fire, in which Floyd was knocked out with a shot in the stomach. An emergency surgery was needed and he quickly recovered from his injuries. After his recovery, he was sent to a youth facility for a year; he was soon paroled . As early as 1961, he hiked back behind bars after violating his probation requirements as he went fishing with a friend in Alaska or Canada .

After serving his sentence, he returned to Hapeville in May 1962 and found work at the Atlanta Municipal Airport . Just a month later, however, his regular life was out of control again when he was arrested again. He lured a four-year-old girl away from a bowling alley and sexually assaulted her in an adjacent forest . For the offense of child abduction and sexual abuse of a child Floyd became a prison sentence convicted in the amount of ten to twenty years, which he at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville took, Georgia. In November of that year, he was taken to Milledgeville State Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. In 1963 he escaped while being transported for an eye exam and stole a vehicle that he drove to Macon , Georgia, where he acquired a gun. On March 15, he robbed a branch of Citizens & Southern National Bank and looted over $ 6,000 . He was quickly convicted, given a 15-year sentence, and admitted to the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in Chillicothe , Ohio . After a failed escape attempt, he received five more years in addition to his sentence and was placed in the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg , Pennsylvania . There, because of his youthful appearance and his status as a pedophile, he was frequently raped by inmates , which led him to climb onto the roof of the building and threaten to commit suicide . He was then transferred to the United States Penitentiary Marion in Williamson County , Illinois , where he behaved significantly better and passed the General Educational Development Test . In February 1968 he was transferred back to Georgia State Prison. There he made friends with fellow inmate David Dial, a notorious criminal who was tall and massive. His wickedness frightened many prisoners and the weak Floyd received his protection. His mother Della, now Della Jarnot due to a marriage to George Henry Jarnot, died on July 2, 1968 and was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago , Illinois.

Escape and relationship with Sandi Chipman

In November 1972, Floyd, now 29, was released after ten years in various prisons and taken to a halfway house , a reintegration center and the like. a. for the discharged, sent. On January 27, 1973, just a week after he was released from the institution, he pushed a woman into her car at a gas station , in which he sexually harassed her . The woman managed to escape and Floyd was arrested again. He convinced David Dial to put bail on him and was released as a fugitive . However, he did not show up for his scheduled trial on June 11, 1973, and an arrest warrant was issued for Floyd. As a result, the name Franklin Delano Floyd disappeared from the scene for 17 years.

Franklin Floyd first stayed with his friend David Dial in Newnan , Georgia and began using aliases to hide his true identity. In 1974 he met the two-time divorced Sandi Chipman, later Sandi Willet, as Brandon Williams at a rest stop in North Carolina . Chipman had four children from both marriages: Suzanne Marie Sevakis (* 1969) from her first marriage to Cliff Sevakis, and Allison (* 1971), Amy (* 1972) and Philipp Steven (* 1974) from her second marriage to Dennis Brandenburg. The two married after just a month and they moved the children to Dallas , Texas .

Life with Suzanne Marie Sevakis

Deprivation of Chipman's children

In 1975 Chipman was arrested for 30 days for check fraud and left the children with her husband, Brandon Williams. After she was released, she found an abandoned apartment. Williams had disappeared with the children. While she was finding her two daughters, Allison and Amy, at the local charity, her youngest and oldest child was gone for good. Williams lived with Suzanne for the next few years, but Philipp was never found again. Chipman tried to file a missing person report with the police and the FBI , but was turned down because Williams, as a stepfather, had the right to take the children.

Live in Oklahoma City, Louisville, and Atlanta

Through a broad network of contacts with former inmates, Floyd was able to obtain fake birth certificates and driver's licenses again and again over the next few years. As Trenton B. Davis he lived with Sevakis, whom he passed off as his daughter Suzanne Davis, from 1975 to 1978 in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma. He began working in a school and smuggled the intelligent girl - Sevakis later became a IQs tested by more than 130 - in the school system. After a babysitter accused him of sexually abusing his daughter, they fled and showed up in Louisville in 1980 . They had changed their names to Warren Judson Marshall and Sharon Marshall. There Floyd found a job as a painter. Under the same name, they left the state of Kentucky two years later and returned to Floyd's native Georgia, where they settled in northern Atlanta . There, Sharon entered Baldwin High School in May 1983 and changed schools three times in one year. In June 1986, she graduated from Forest High School. Her goal was to study aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech and she was accepted there, but had to change her plans as the two of them moved to Phoenix , Arizona . She got pregnant for the first time before graduation and as a result Floyd took her to a new town where she didn't know anyone so that he could keep controlling the adult sevakis. The child was born in Atlanta and put up for adoption, according to Floyd's later statements. In Phoenix, the young woman took a job as a hostess at the Marriott Hotel near the airport . She met the waiter Greg Higgs, with whom she entered into a partnership. She now planned to study at Arizona State , which she was never able to achieve due to a new pregnancy. She left Higgs, and she and Floyd disappeared from Arizona.

Life in Tampa

In 1987 both showed up in Tampa , Florida , where pregnant Sharon Marshall began working as a stripper and, presumably, as a prostitute as Floyd had urged her to do so. She danced at a nightclub called Mons Venus in Tampa, where women could make up to $ 3,000 a week. Although she was first told to lose weight, the customers liked the sight of the pregnant Marshall and she was able to stay. Warren Marshall worked as a painter, but fell off a ladder after a few weeks and lived on a small disability pension , but mostly on Sharon's earnings. Michael Anthony Marshall, later Michael Anthony Hughes, was born on March 21 or April 21, 1988. In contrast to the previous pregnancy, he was not given up for adoption. Warren was disturbed by the baby's presence, but he was also very enthusiastic about his "daughter" to others. In the presence of a work colleague, he sexually molested Sharon, which soon spread the rumor in the Mons Venus that he would be with his daughter and even be Michael's father.

Floyd and Sevakis, who was pregnant again, rushed out of town in December 1988, following the usual strategy. They went to Louisville, where Sevakis also worked as a dancer for a short time. On December 25, 1988, she was found unconscious in her car after a drug overdose and was taken to hospital. She was released immediately and after this incident, unlike previous pregnancies, the Marshalls returned to their old city of Tampa. At work she met a man named Cary Strukel, who became her boyfriend and befriended a colleague Cheryl Ann "Stevie" Commesso (* 1970). Floyd now showed himself to be an enthusiastic supporter of the work of his "daughter" in front of her boyfriend. He also arranged for Sharon to have breast implants to increase her career opportunities as a porn actress , he said . He also showed the babysitter Michaels and her boyfriend provocative videos of Sharon together with Commesso, which he had recorded himself. Commesso later moved in with the Marshalls' household after she was kicked out by her roommates for her freedom of movement. Floyd fell in love with Commesso and was with her too, although she did not find him attractive. However, she was enthusiastic about his vita, which Warren could shamelessly exploit. For example, he presented himself to her as a photographer with contacts to Playboy in order to be able to take pornographic photographs of her.

Disappearance of Cheryl Ann Commesso

Other colleagues at Sharon's work were less enthusiastic about Warren and found it strange that he was so supportive of his daughter's work; they thought he was dangerous. Despite all warnings from work colleagues, Commesso continued to meet with him and he took her on a boat trip on Lake Okeechobee . There he asked Commesso to have intercourse, but she refused. The angry Warren attacked her, slapped her in the face, tried to choke her and tried to tie her up in a fishing net. In agony, she jumped overboard and narrowly missed his ejected net. Then she hitchhiked her way home. In order to harm Warren, she whistled Sharon Marshall at the welfare that they earned over 1,500 US dollars a week. The social assistance payments to them were then stopped. Warren was upset and tried to pull Commesso into his car before Mons Venus in April 1989 , but was stopped by bodyguards. A week later she disappeared without a trace. In mid-April, Sharon Marshall was visibly pregnant again and a work colleague confronted her directly with the suspicion that her father was the child's father. Sharon tearfully admitted to a person for the first time that Warren was just her stepfather and had been abusing her for years. However, she could not leave him because she saw that he had committed bad deeds and she was afraid that otherwise he would kill her and Michael.

On May 9, 1989, an arrest warrant was issued for Warren Marshall. He had stolen the twenty-foot motorboat on which he had attacked Commesso, drilled holes in it, drowned it in an attempt to commit insurance fraud. A month later his mobile home burned down deliberately and he was gone with Sevakis and Michael.

Life in Tulsa

In June 1989, Commesso was finally reported missing by her father, after which the Marshalls fled the city. Her car, a red Corvette C4 , was found abandoned in a parking lot at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport in May . They traveled to New Orleans , Louisiana , and Floyd took the name Clarence Marcus Hughes. He married the young Tonya Dawn Tadlock, as Sevakis now called herself, and in August she had a girl who was put up for adoption. In September 1989, they moved on to Tulsa , Oklahoma, where Tonya took a job as a stripper with the Passions . She befriended her work colleague Karen "Connie" Parsley and began a relationship with college student Kevin Brown and became increasingly estranged from Floyd. She thought of a future with Brown, found pleasure in reading again and wanted to part with Floyd for good with Michael. It had long outgrown the pedophile and was only used to raise money. He seemed to focus on her son Michael now and a living Sevakis got in his way.

Suzanne Marie Sevakis dies

In the early hours of early April 1990, three men in a vehicle were traveling on Interstate 35 , northeast of Oklahoma City and southeast of Edmond , Oklahoma. After exiting I-35 and driving on a service road , they became aware of an orphaned blue women's shoe. Only a hundred meters later, the driver discovered Tonya Dawn Hughes (Sevakis), who was seriously injured, lying next to the road and alerted the emergency services in a Motel 6 a few hundred meters away , who immediately took them to the Presbyterian Hospital in Oklahoma City. She was apparently the victim of an accident with hit and run ( hit-and-run accident became), which was supported by distributed purchases and belongings at the scene. When she got to the hospital, Hughes was approachable and, even after x-ray examinations, had no broken bones or the scratches and bleeding that would have occurred in an accident of this type. Nevertheless, due to a hematoma on the back of her head, her life was in danger and she was put into an artificial coma . Clarence Marcus Hughes came to the hospital the next day, but was only noticed by his lack of empathy. The only thing he cared about was that no visitors could get into her room and put a self-made sign on the door of the room with the words "NO VISITORS". He also said he fell asleep in the motel room while his wife left to run errands.

In the days that followed, her friend Karen Parsley and Kevin Brown visited her regularly, to the displeasure of her husband. Tonya showed reactions to her environment for the first time and was on the mend. The doctors were now sure for the first time that she would survive her injury. The doctor in charge first expressed his suspicion to Parsley that Tonya was not hit by a car and cited the lack of external injuries. Parsley concluded that Clarence wanted to kill her and that he would not accept the failed attempt. She contacted the hospital that they should pay more attention to Tonya's room. During another visit the next day, she also left her contact details at the Presbyterian Hospital, which she should contact in an emergency. As early as the morning of the next day, April 13, 1990, she received a call that Tonya's condition had deteriorated drastically during the night and that she would not make it through the day. When she got to the hospital she was already dead.

Dr. Charles Engel carried out the autopsy on the body and discovered various wounds and bruises on the limbs. He also found that Tonya Hughes had been through multiple pregnancies and had multiple surgical procedures, including her breast and buttock implants. The severe injury to the skull bone led him to conclude that death was "violent, unusual or unnatural" and that it was the result of a homicide . At Tonya's funeral on May 4th, to the amazement of the mourners, Clarence Hughes placed a photo of her as a little girl on the lap of a man around thirty, presumably himself with Suzanne Sevakis, on the coffin. A short time later, the widower contacted an insurance company because he wanted one of the two months previously taken out life insurance policies worth 50,000 euros. He gave Franklin Delano Floyd's social security number, against whom the arrest warrant from 1973 was still available, and then left Tulsa with his suitcases packed. The insurance company reported this to police, who found that Tonya Dawn Hughes' birth certificate was forged and that Clarence Hughes had not appeared or been reported anywhere prior to his arrival in Tulsa.

While searching for relatives for Tonya Hughes's funeral, her former boss found out that she had taken her name, Tonya Dawn Tadlock, from an Alabama child who had died of pneumonia at 18 months .

Revealing his identities

Arrest and fight for custody of Michael Anthony Hughes

On May 1, 1990, Clarence Hughes had voluntarily given his two-year-old son Michael Anthony Hughes into the care of the Department of Human Services (DHS for short), where he was to stay with the Bean family for a few days. Merle and her husband Ernest had dozens more foster children in the decades that followed, but little Michael was more traumatized than any before and after. In the meantime, Karen Parsley went to the DHS and also expressed the suspicion that Hughes had murdered the child's mother and had abused the child in his care, which is why he did not get his child back for the time being. Michael stayed with the beans, where he only made grunting and growling noises for the first few days. He also kept banging his head on the floor and crying all the time. This behavior didn't improve until days later, and it became clear that he was backward for his age. He could not speak or walk safely and only had a short attention span.

Also in May 1990, child father Greg Higgs received a call from Floyd posing as Warren Marshall and telling him that he had a two-year-old son and that he was going to take him. Presumably his aim was to kidnap the boy from Higgs care after serving his sentence. Six weeks after fleeing Tulsa, Franklin Floyd was arrested in Augusta , Georgia. He had made his way through doing odd jobs as a painter and craftsman during this time, using the name Trenton B. Davis . Meanwhile, investigators had also been able to attribute some of the myriad aliases he had used, including Preston Morgan , Whistle Britches Floyd , Kingfish Floyd , and Clarence Marcus Hughes . He had either read it from tombstones or created it with his real surname Floyd, since he preferred to be addressed by Floyd. In order not to lose custody of his son, he took a respected criminal lawyer. He financed this with the 80,000 US dollars he received for the two life insurance policies. In December 1990 he was transferred to a prison in El Reno , Oklahoma by the Richmond County Joint Law Enforcement Center and given the right to see his son at set times each month. At a hearing in February 1991 to determine whether he would have custody after his release from prison, he accepted an education course but had to take a paternity test. At another hearing in January 1992, he demonstrated that he had attended the course, but the paternity test had never been taken and Floyd continued to refuse to take one. In July of the same year, he finally had to take it off and it was found that he was not Michael's biological father. But this was obviously known to him. In December 1992 a court ruled that Floyd's contact and Michael’s visits should be discontinued, and the Beans initiated an adoption process.

On March 30, 1993, Floyd was released from the Federal Correctional Facility in El Reno and had to go to a halfway house weekly on probation . In July 1993, the Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned the court's ruling, allowing monthly visits, and Floyd another chance to regain Michael's custody. During his time with the foster family, he had made considerable progress, learned to speak and left his traumatized behavior of the past behind him. Floyd took a regular job as a janitor at Lyrewood Pointe Apartments in Oklahoma City. As a concierge , he had the keys to all the apartments and thus gained access to Carrie Box's apartment on Independence Day 1994. This caught him red-handed as he rummaged in a dresser drawer. Floyd overpowered and threatened her. The woman's boyfriend arrived a short time later, routed Floyd, and pursued him. He caught up with him and held him until the police arrived. Floyd remained on probation, but was fired and had to move into the halfway house , which he was only allowed to leave to work.

Kidnapping of Michael Anthony Hughes

The custody decision was set for September 23, 1994 and Franklin Floyd had no hope of his most recent crime. Michael Anthony Hughes, now six, started his first day of school on September 12, 1994 at Indian Meridian Elementary School in Choctaw , Oklahoma. Franklin Floyd entered the school building at nine o'clock that day and went into the headmaster's office, James Davis. He threatened him with a firearm and made sure that he brought him to Michael's classroom. Davis cooperated in concern for the lives of the students and got Michael out of class. The three got into the parking lot in Davis pick-up and the pick-up was forced to drive into a wooded area. There he was forced to crouch a few meters from the road and handcuffed to a tree. In addition, his mouth was covered with tape, which came off when he slowly straightened up. Hours later, Davis was discovered and rescued by passers-by. Franklin Floyd had managed to escape once more.

Search and reconstruction of his life

In the subsequent investigation, the police also focused on reconstructing Floyd's life since his escape in 1973 and establishing the real identity of Tonya Dawn Hughes . Special Agent Joe Fitzpatrick was assigned to the Michael Hughes kidnapping case and received a variety of human resources. The breakthrough came on the seventeenth day of the investigation when Fitzpatrick saw a photo of a certain Trenton B. Davis with his six-year-old daughter Suzanne Davis . They received this from a former work colleague of Floyd. Until then, the only way to trace Floyd's life was to go back to 1975, when he first appeared in Oklahoma City as Trenton B. Davis and thought that he had only met his wife Tonya later. The resemblance between the adults Tonya Dawn Hughes and Suzanne Davis left the investigators in no doubt that they were one and the same person. He must have kidnapped this girl sometime between 1973 and 1975 and it was these missing two years in Floyd's biography that prevented the investigators from determining the girl's true identity for many years.

On October 22, 1994, a police officer in Dallas, Texas discovered Director James Davis' stolen vehicle and thus the first trace of Floyd six weeks after Michael Hughes was kidnapped. With the statements of Greg Higgs and David Dial, who last hid him as Daniel Pittman after Tonya's death , it was possible to fill empty spaces in his and especially in her biography. Fitzpatrick directed all State Department of Transportation offices in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida to keep an eye out and report anyone named Franklin Floyd or alias. On November 9th, he received a call from Louisville that a person named Warren Marshall was trying to renew his driver's license.

Conviction as a kidnapper

Arrest and prosecution

Floyd was Warren Marshall's car salesman at JD Byrider Sales and was awaiting his driver's license on November 10, 1994. An FBI agent disguised as a FedEx driver lured Floyd to him in a parking lot outside his place of work. Seconds later, seven FBI agents circled him and he was arrested. There was still no trace of Michael, however, and Floyd often falsely spoken out during interrogation. He continued to provide false information about the true identity of Suzanne Davis and Sharon Marshall and Tonya Dawn Hughes . In addition, he did not want to reveal Michael's whereabouts and stated that Michael was kidnapped by the Mafia because Tonya had stolen money from Mafiosi and buried it somewhere. In the meantime, Oklahoma was preparing for the repatriation of Floyds and the charge of kidnapping Michael Anthony Hughes, various other crimes related to the confiscation and illegal possession of a firearm.

It was determined that Floyd as Warren Marshall appeared in Atlanta no later than September 21, 1994, nine days after Michael was kidnapped, because from that day he was under psychiatric treatment. He said there that his wife and son had died and left Grady Memorial Hospital himself eight days later. He then received a voucher from Travelers Aid, an institution that is destitute travelers leaving the city, a voucher to return to his "home" Louisville and a voucher for Burger King . In Louisville, he lived in a homeless facility for two days, then rented an apartment and got a job as a painter. He was considered a creepy and terrifying person by work colleagues. A week later, he told a worker that he had kidnapped a five-year-old boy in Atlanta and that his wife was a prostitute. He was also watched by neighbors walking around his apartment all night. After a short time he quit the painter's company and found a job as a car salesman at JD Byrider Sales, where he was caught after two days.

With Franklin Floyd presenting himself as the caring father of Michael Anthony Hughes during his two years in his care, prosecutors Mark Yancey and Ed Kumiega were concerned that the child abduction charge would stand up in court. Because although Floyd was not Michael’s biological father, he represented the father figure for him during this time and could thus be defined as a father, which would not have made him liable for kidnapping. Investigators assumed that Michael had come to Atlanta with Franklin Floyd and that Franklin Floyd then murdered him because no one had seen him in Atlanta or Louisville. Witnesses voiced various scenarios of how the boy might have died. A former inmate of Floyd said he threw Michael off a bridge into a river, and another witness said he stuck Michael's body into a drainpipe built for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics . His own sister, Dorothy Leonard, testified that in a telephone conversation with her, he admitted how he murdered him.

“He said they had a motel room and when they went there he wanted to give Michael a bath and told him to take off his clothes. Franklin turned on the water and kept it running when Michael got in the bath. Franklin told him to lie on his stomach. But Michael turned around and saw Franklin taking his clothes off. Michael started to question him, asking Franklin why he was taking his clothes off too. Franklin told me he said they were going to play games together, and got into the tub with Michael, who was hollering for him to get out. "

“He said they had a motel room and when they walked in he wanted to bathe Michael and told him to take off his clothes. Franklin took in the water and let it run when Michael got into the tub. Franklin told him to lie on his stomach. Michael asked him why he was taking off his clothes. Franklin told me he said they were playing together and got into the tub with Michael, who yelled to go out. "

- Dorothy Leonard : quoted from

She continued:

“Franklin said he stayed in the tub, then started asking Michael if he loved him. He told me he said, 'Michael, do you love me?' Michael said 'No.' Franklin was upset, and pushed Michael's head into the water, then let him come up for air. He asked him again if he loved him, and Michael said 'No' again, so Franklin put him under again. It happened a third time, with Michael saying 'No.' I know Franklin. He must have been so mad at that poor little boy he just held his head under the water until he stopped moving. "

“Franklin stayed in the tub and asked Michael if he was in love. He told me he said, 'Michael, do you love me?' Michael said, 'No.' Franklin was upset and pushed Michael's head under the water, then let him up for breath. He asked him again if he loved him and Michael said 'No' again and Franklin immersed him again. It happened a third time and Michael was still saying, 'No.' I know Franklin. He must have been mad at this poor little boy for sticking his head under water until it stopped moving. "

- Dorothy Leonard : quoted from

Floyd is said to have admitted to having drowned Michael in the bathtub. Then he is said to have put his dead body in the trunk of his car and disposed of it somewhere. He did not tell her the location. Chief investigator Fitzpatrick believed Leonard's testimony. On January 14, 1995, investigators found a car in an Atlanta parking lot that Floyd stole the day before he was voluntarily admitted to a mental hospital.

Trial and Conviction

The United States trial of Franklin Delano Floyd began on Tuesday, March 29, 1995, and Special Agent Joe Fitzpatrick was the first to take the stand. Floyd's request to change location had previously been denied, which is why he received an open- jury trial in return . After various witnesses had testified by Friday, the new owner of James Davis' pickup found an envelope full of pictures under the rear of the car. The man looked through this and alerted the police, who were able to determine the origin of the vehicle immediately. There were various shots of a girl in clear sexual positions from toddler to adulthood and Fitzpatrick could clearly identify them as Sharon Marshall . This proved that she had been sexually abused by Floyd since she was abducted. In addition, there were photographs of an unknown woman in the picture collection who was lying naked, tied up, beaten up, with her legs apart, and obviously unconscious on her back. Kumiega, Yancey and Fitzpatrick knew it was too late to accuse him of child molestation in this trial, and they kept the photos on hand for the time being. At the same time, investigators were already busy finding out the identity of the stranger.

Floyd presented himself as an upright citizen in court, but at the same time could not withstand the oppressive burden of proof and the statements of Fitzpatrick. The hearing ended on April 7, 1995 and the closing arguments began three days later. In it, Floyd and his lawyer talked about how much he had suffered as a child in the home and later as an adult in detention, which was why he no longer trusted institutions. As his "father" he wanted to free Michael from this system and take care of him himself. Still, his heartbreaking plea, as those in attendance later described, did not help either, and Franklin Floyd was found guilty on all counts. Dozens of media representatives were already waiting in front of the gates of the courthouse and Floyd showed a different side when leaving this than a few minutes before. He spat at a reporter and pointed his middle fingers at the television cameras while yelling "Fuck Oklahoma". He was placed in the Oklahoma County Jail, where he remained until his sentence was decided on August 10, 1995.

Despite Floyd's conviction and the high likelihood that he would be behind bars for life, the main points of the case remained unresolved. The true identity of Sharon Marshall and the circumstances in which she died, the whereabouts of Michael Anthony Hughes and the identity of the strangers in the photos were not known. Just nine days later, the investigators' work on the Floyd case ended prematurely with the bomb attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , in which 168 people were killed. On August 10, 1995, Franklin Delano Floyd was sentenced to 52 years and three months' imprisonment with no parole. He did not receive a life sentence , but would not have left prison until he was 104 years old.

Conviction as a murderer

Discovery and identification of Commesso's body

On March 29, 1995, a worker discovered a human skull in a dry lagoon near Interstate 275 and south of the Roosevelt Boulevard exit in Pinellas County , Florida. The police immediately cordoned off the area and an excavator exposed additional bones, teeth and hair. Clothing and jewelry were also discovered. The woman's human remains, as previously identified, were sent for an autopsy. Two bullet holes on the back of the head and various facial injuries let the coroner conclude the cause of death of the murder. The woman's age was estimated at 16 to 20 years and she had been dead for at least two to three years. The case was assigned to Detectives Robert Schock and Mark Deasaro, found in the Saint Petersburg Police Department. Up to 50 missing women from Tampa-Saint Petersburg matched the description of Jane Doe and after she could not be identified in the first few weeks, the case was closed for the time being.

Over a year later, on July 16, 1996, Schock received a call from the FBI in Tampa asking for photographs of an unknown, presumably dead woman to be compared with the unidentified Jane Doe. These photos were those found in Floyd's stolen pickup truck, and the brutally battered woman's clothes were the same as those found in the lagoon. Joe Fitzpatrick had sent this to the FBI in Tampa, knowing that Floyd had lived in Tampa for a short time. He lived there between 1988 and 1989, which is why investigators now focused on missing persons cases from that time and ultimately came across Cheryl Ann Commesso. The comparison of the dental schemes finally brought certainty and the I-275 Jane Doe was identified as a Commesso. Schock and Desaro reached an understanding with those involved in the Michael Anthony Hughes kidnapping case and discussed the next steps with them. On March 25, 1997, Franklin Delano Floyd was interviewed for the first time in the Oklahoma City Jail about the murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso, but said he did not know the woman. He did not know her until the second interrogation two days later, but he vehemently denied her murder.

Trial and Conviction

In November 1997, he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping of Michael Anthony Hughes. This enabled him to be transferred to Georgia State Prison, where he had been incarcerated from 1971 to 1972. On November 12, 1997, the court brought charges against Floyd on the First Degree Murder crime . In 1999 he was transferred to the Pinellas County Jail in Florida. The murder charge then slowly crept through the courts. On March 2, 2001, following a request from Floyd's attorneys, the judge in charge ruled that he was unable to go on trial and ordered further psychiatric examinations. He went to a psychiatric hospital and was considered capable by the psychiatrists there after months of residence. The trial finally began on September 9, 2002. There were no witnesses who had witnessed the crime and no confession from Floyd, so the prosecution was based solely on the recordings found and the statements of acquaintances. On September 28, Franklin Delano Floyd was found guilty of murder by the jury. Commesso's report to the welfare organization and her rejection of Floyd's advances were named as motives. On October 1, he was sentenced to death by the jury . He remained in the Pinellas County Jail until he was transferred to Florida State Prison Death Row in February 2003. He has been awaiting lethal injection since then .

Later developments and identification of sevakis

Despite his hopeless position, Franklin Delano Floyd remained guilty of the real identity of Sharon Marshall , the fate of Michael Anthony Hughes and the circumstances surrounding the death of Cheryl Ann Commesso for the next several years . In an interview with writer Matt Birkbeck , he said he gave Michael to a dark underground group that got him out of the country and has since communicated with him through USA Today ads . Various NGOs tried to identify Sharon Marshall over the next few years , such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children or the Doe Network .

In September 2014, Floyd confessed to the murder of Michael Anthony Hughes' two FBI agents. He admitted to killing the boy with two headshots the day he was kidnapped and burying his body next to Interstate 35. A full-scale search for Hughes' body returned no results and led investigators to conclude that wild boars had eaten his body. In addition, he revealed for the first time the true identity of Suzanne Marie Sevakis and how he had kidnapped her. In October 2014 it was finally announced that Suzanne Davis alias Sharon Marshall alias Tonya Dawn Hughes had been identified as Suzanne Sevakis in a DNA analysis . Her mother, Sandi Chipman, had never posted a missing person report and she was never listed in a missing person database. However, he remains silent about the circumstances of Sevakis' death.

The whereabouts of the infant Philipp Steven Brandenburg is still unknown.

Literary processing

In his 2004 book A Beautiful Child , Matt Birkbeck described the entire life of Franklin Delano Floyd and that of the then unidentified Suzanne Marie Sevakis.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 69-72 .
  2. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 73 .
  3. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 73 .
  4. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 73-76 .
  5. ↑ Della Jewel Jarnot In: Find a Grave (accessed March 21, 2020)
  6. ↑ a b Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 76 .
  7. ↑ a b c Finally In: Matt Birkbeck of March 10, 2014 (accessed on March 23, 2020)
  8. ↑ a b c d Cold Case Investigation - Solving a Decades-Old Mystery In: FBI of August 3, 2015 (accessed March 23, 2020)
  9. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 107 .
  10. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 108-112 .
  11. ↑ a b Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 171-184 .
  12. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 169 .
  13. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 175-190 .
  14. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 186-190 .
  15. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 166 .
  16. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 191 .
  17. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 191 f .
  18. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 9-13 .
  19. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 58-61 .
  20. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 63-68 .
  21. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 79-80 .
  22. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 64, 77 .
  23. ↑ Inspiring Couples: Merle and Ernest Bean have shared their home with more than 84 children In: The Oklahoman, May 9, 2010 (accessed March 1, 2020)
  24. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 64 .
  25. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 77-78 .
  26. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 112 .
  27. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 142 .
  28. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 81-86 .
  29. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 88-92 .
  30. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 94-98 .
  31. ↑ 1061DMOK - Michael Anthony Hughes In: Doe Network (accessed March 23, 2020)
  32. ↑ Michael Hughes In: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (accessed March 23, 2020)
  33. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 99-105 .
  34. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 106-113 .
  35. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 114-120 .
  36. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 128-130 .
  37. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 128-136 .
  38. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 135 .
  39. ↑ a b Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 136 .
  40. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 143-146 .
  41. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 146-153 .
  42. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 154-158 .
  43. ↑ a b Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 160-164 .
  44. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 193-198 .
  45. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 199 .
  46. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 215-220 .
  47. ↑ FLOYD, Franklin Delano (W / M). (No longer available online.) In: Florida Capital Cases. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018 ; accessed on March 24, 2020 (English).
  48. ↑ Franklin Delano Floyd (Appellant) vs. State of Florida (Appellee) In: Florida Supreme Court (accessed March 23, 2020)
  49. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 199 .
  50. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 236 .
  51. ↑ Matt Birkbeck: A Beautiful Child . Berkley Books, 2004, ISBN 978-0-425-20440-5 , pp. 199 .
  52. ↑ Case File 8UFOK - Unidentified White Female Known as "Suzanne Davis"; "Sharon Marshall"; "Tonya Hughes" In: Doe Network (accessed March 23, 2020)
  53. ↑ After 20 years of lies, kidnapper admits killing Oklahoma boy In: The Oklahoman, April 12, 2016 (accessed March 24, 2020)
  54. ↑ 5323DMTX - Phillip Steven Brandenburg In: Doe Network (accessed March 23, 2020)
  55. ↑ Who Were Sharon Marshall and Michael Hughes? In: Still Unsolved on September 17, 2012 (accessed on March 23, 2020)
personal data
SURNAME Floyd, Franklin Delano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Floyd, Franklin; Williams, Brandon Cleo; Davis, Trenton H .; Hughes, Clarence Marcus; Morgan, Preston; Floyd, Whistle Britches; Floyd, kingfish
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murderer, sex offender, kidnapper, and alleged serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Barnesville , Georgia