Michael Francke
Encyclopedia
James Michael Francke was the Director of the Oregon Department of Corrections
, the governmental bureau which manages prison
s, inmates and parolees in the state of Oregon
. He was appointed by then-governor Neil Goldschmidt
to oversee Goldschmidt's plan to double the state's inmate capacity. On January 18, 1989, his body was discovered outside the department's office building in Salem
; an autopsy determined he had been murder
ed the night before. A local petty criminal was eventually tried and convicted for the crime, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, the convicted killer maintains his innocence, and several conspiracy theories
have been advocated, claiming that the killing was a murder for hire conducted by corrupt state prison officials threatened by an investigation Francke was conducting into prison mismanagement.
A 1995 film Without Evidence
, written by Gil Dennis and Phil Stanford, an Oregon columnist who has investigated the case extensively, was based on the Francke murder and subsequent investigations by Kevin Francke, Michael's brother. In the film, Francke was portrayed by Ernie Garrett.
The Association of State Correctional Administrators annually awards the Michael Francke Award to the top corrections administrator in the United States.
, attended New Mexico Highlands University
on a football
scholarship, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in a combined major of political science
, economics
, German
, and French
. He then attended the University of Virginia Law School on a scholastic scholarship, graduating with a law degree in 1971, and was subsequently admitted to the Virginia
bar. For the next three years he served as a judge advocate general
in the United States Navy
, at Long Beach Naval Station; during this time, he also received Navy SEAL
self-defense training.
In 1975, he was admitted to the bar in New Mexico
, and worked as an assistant attorney general and counsel to the state Department of Corrections. He served in this capacity until 1980, when he became a judge for the First District Court in Santa Fe
. He served as a judge for three years, and in 1983 became the director of the New Mexico Department of Corrections. While serving in this capacity, he was credited with reforming New Mexico's prison system which had been devastated by the 1980 riots at the State Penitentiary
in Santa Fe.
In May 1987, Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt
hired Francke to fill the corresponding position in Oregon. He was hired with a remit to address problems in the state's Department of Corrections (ODOC). During his tenure, he had been criticized by some in the Oregon Legislature for cost overrun
s and delays in a state prison construction program.
Early on the morning of January 18, 1989, a security guard found Francke's body lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the North Portico of the Dome Building (the headquarters office of ODOC, not to be confused with the Oregon State Capitol
building) in Salem
. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a stab wound to the heart suffered the night before, and also revealed other "defensive wounds". Francke was last seen alive by Dome Building staff at approximately 6:45 p.m. on January 17. Two senior staff leaving the Dome Building approximately 40 minutes later discovered his car parked in its designated spot outside the front entryway with the driver's door open. No obvious signs of forced entry on the vehicle were observed. The staffers locked and closed the car door, and returned to the Dome Building where they made numerous phone calls to other senior staffers in an effort to determine Francke's whereabouts, all to no avail. Security was notified at the nearby Communications Center, and the staffers left the Dome Building at approximately 8:05 p.m. Two other senior staffers, Richard Peterson, head of Institutions, and David Caulley, head of Planning and Budget, arrived at approximately 8:35 p.m. and conducted what they described as a meticulous search of the Dome Building, but found nothing amiss. They returned to their homes on the presumption that Francke was at a private dinner engagement. Police were never notified of the situation until the guard discovered the body nearly four hours later.
Given the nature of Francke's work, the possibility that the murder was a "hit" was immediately considered. An investigation commenced, and fifteen months later, Frank Gable, a small-time methamphetamine
dealer, was charged with the crime. A local teen runaway named Jodie Swearingen testified before a grand jury
that she had witnessed the murder; police reports indicate that she had identified Gable as the perpetrator. She later recanted her testimony, instead claiming that another Salem drug dealer, Timothy Natividad, was the murderer.
At the trial, the state produced several witnesses (all of whom were criminal associates of Gable) who claimed that Gable confessed the crime to them after the fact. Swearingen was called to testify by the prosecution at the trial. No physical evidence was produced; however the prosecution was allowed to introduce as evidence a knife (purchased by investigators) which matched Francke's wounds; Gable's ex-wife testified that she had given Gable a similar knife.
On June 27, 1991, Gable was convicted of six counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Gable, currently incarcerated in the Nevada state prison system, continues to maintain his innocence.
, who has called the case a "killing that won't go away". Adding to the discord are the physical attributes of the two individuals; Michael Francke was a SEAL
-trained ex-Navy veteran, standing about 6'3", weighing in at about 200 lbs., who normally carried a sidearm for protection. Frank Gable, by contrast, had no service or other self-defense training, stood a mere 5'8", weighed in at about 150 lbs, and had no history of physical confrontations with other men. To many observers, the idea that this skinny, wife-beating, meth addict could have physically overcome the much larger and better-equipped Francke, was simply not believable.
The Francke family, led by Francke's brother Kevin Francke, have also publicly expressed doubts about the official conclusions. Kevin Francke has claimed that prior to his death, Michael Francke warned him of a threat on his life, and told him that he had discovered a network of corruption in the department.
There are several theories as to who may have been the killer or killers, and who may have ordered a "hit" on Francke. Most alternate theories of the case propose Timothy Natividad (who was killed two weeks after the Francke murder) as the person who stabbed Francke. Theories as to who may have been behind the killing focus on two men high in the corrections hierarchy. One individual who has been named is Hoyt Cupp, the former warden of the Oregon State Penitentiary
; in 2007, a convicted felon
gave a series of interviews to Willamette Week in which he claimed that he witnessed Cupp and another (unnamed) corrections official pay Natividad $20,000; and that Natividad later informed him it was payment for killing Francke. Cupp died of cancer in 1990.
Another individual who has been named is Scott McAlister, who had been the assistant attorney general for the state of Oregon until he resigned shortly before Franke's death. McAlister subsequently became Inspector General of the Utah corrections department. An ex-girlfriend of McAlister told the Portland Tribune that McAlister had been in possession of internal police documents concerning the murder that he no longer had had any official reason to possess, and that she had overheard McAlister describe the killing as a "botched hit that was supposed to look like a suicide".
The McAlister theory gained credence in October 1991, when one of the private investigators who had worked on the Gable defense team, H. Wayne Holm, was killed by a Multnomah County Sheriff's deputy, Brian Martinek (now an assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau), allegedly during a "reverse sting" drug operation. Holm, who had been a former inmate in the Oregon Correction system during the early 1980s had assisted numerous other inmates with parole hearing presentations, and had known Scott McAlister, who represented the Parole and Probation Board during those hearings. Holm had offered the theory that the primary motivation for Francke's murder, was that he had discovered a plot by McAlister to "sell" paroles to inmates. Adding to the mix, was the fact that the person who had been appointed to fill Francke's office after his death in 1997, had been Fred Pierce, the longtime Sheriff of Multnomah County, and the man who had originally hired Martinek.
Much speculation has centered on a mysterious "man in the pinstriped suit", an unknown individual who was spotted by a corrections employee inside the corrections Dome Building, 90 minutes after closing time. The individual has never been identified. Another Dome Building employee, who worked as a Parole Board clerk, has stated the man in the pinstriped suit also matches the description she gave to police as the man who arrived at the Dome Building the day of the murder to repair the copy machine late in the afternoon, and was granted unprecedented access to remain in the building after hours to complete the repairs. The repairs were never completed, the machine was left in pieces, and neither the man in the pinstriped suit or Dennis Plante, the man who testified he was the copy machine repairman (but whom the Parole Board clerk states was not the man who worked on the copier), returned to complete the repairs, nor was any record of the service call found in the copier 'repair log' after the murder. Whether or not the individual has any relation to the killing is unknown, the individual does not resemble Gable.
Dale Penn, the current head of the Oregon Lottery
and the former Marion County
district attorney
whose office oversaw the prosecution of Gable, states that he has "every confidence that Frank Gable is guilty and that this story (the Willamette Week article) is not true".
backing the official version of what happened, and its rivals, the Portland Tribune
and (to a lesser extent) the Willamette Week
questioning the official record. In May 2005, the Oregonian published the results of an investigation into the case, which concluded that Gable was indeed the killer, and that the killing was a robbery gone wrong. The Tribune ran a rebuttal, claiming to have uncovered holes in the Oregonians reporting, which was followed by a further rebuttal by the Oregonian reporters in the newspaper's blog.
A leading advocate of the conspiracy theory is local journalist Phil Stanford
. Stanford has written extensively on the case, and wrote the screenplay
for a film based on the Francke murder, Without Evidence
(1995), featuring a young Angelina Jolie
, in one of her first major roles, as Jodie Swearingen. Stanford, then a columnist for The Oregonian
, testified in the trial for the defense. He continued writing about the case in his Oregonian column until leaving the paper in 1994; he now writes for the Portland Tribune
and continues to cover the case there.
In February 1991, prior to Gable's conviction, the Michael Francke story was featured on an episode of the TV program Unsolved Mysteries
.
Oregon Department of Corrections
The Oregon Department of Corrections is the agency of the U.S. state of Oregon charged with managing a system of 14 state prisons since its creation by the state legislature in 1987...
, the governmental bureau which manages prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
s, inmates and parolees in the state of Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. He was appointed by then-governor Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Edward Goldschmidt is an American businessman and former Democratic politician from Oregon who held local, state, and federal offices over three decades. After serving as the governor of Oregon, Goldschmidt is widely considered the most influential figure in the state's politics, both as an...
to oversee Goldschmidt's plan to double the state's inmate capacity. On January 18, 1989, his body was discovered outside the department's office building in Salem
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...
; an autopsy determined he had been murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed the night before. A local petty criminal was eventually tried and convicted for the crime, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, the convicted killer maintains his innocence, and several conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
have been advocated, claiming that the killing was a murder for hire conducted by corrupt state prison officials threatened by an investigation Francke was conducting into prison mismanagement.
A 1995 film Without Evidence
Without Evidence
Without Evidence is a 1995 thriller co-written by Gill Dennis and Phil Stanford. The film was directed by Gill Dennis.-Plot:It is based on the true story of Michael Francke, who was the Head of Corrections for the state of Oregon before being murdered. Just before his murder, Francke visits his...
, written by Gil Dennis and Phil Stanford, an Oregon columnist who has investigated the case extensively, was based on the Francke murder and subsequent investigations by Kevin Francke, Michael's brother. In the film, Francke was portrayed by Ernie Garrett.
The Association of State Correctional Administrators annually awards the Michael Francke Award to the top corrections administrator in the United States.
Education and career
Francke, a native of Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, attended New Mexico Highlands University
New Mexico Highlands University
New Mexico Highlands University is a public university located in Las Vegas, New Mexico.-History:The university was first established as New Mexico Normal School in 1893, with the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett serving as its first president...
on a football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
scholarship, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in a combined major of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. He then attended the University of Virginia Law School on a scholastic scholarship, graduating with a law degree in 1971, and was subsequently admitted to the Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
bar. For the next three years he served as a judge advocate general
Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy
The Judge Advocate General's Corps also known as the "JAG Corps" or "JAG" is the legal arm of the United States Navy. Today, the corps consists of a worldwide organization of more than 730 Judge Advocates, 30 limited duty officers , 500 enlisted members and nearly 275 civilian personnel, serving...
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
, at Long Beach Naval Station; during this time, he also received Navy SEAL
Seal
Seal commonly refers to:* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals many of which are commonly called seals* Seal , a device which helps prevent leakage, contain pressure, or exclude contamination where two systems join...
self-defense training.
In 1975, he was admitted to the bar in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, and worked as an assistant attorney general and counsel to the state Department of Corrections. He served in this capacity until 1980, when he became a judge for the First District Court in Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. He served as a judge for three years, and in 1983 became the director of the New Mexico Department of Corrections. While serving in this capacity, he was credited with reforming New Mexico's prison system which had been devastated by the 1980 riots at the State Penitentiary
New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot
The New Mexico Penitentiary Riot, which took place on February 2 and 3, 1980, in the state's maximum security prison south of Santa Fe, was one of the most violent prison riots in the history of the American correctional system: 33 inmates died and more than 200 inmates were treated for injuries...
in Santa Fe.
In May 1987, Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Edward Goldschmidt is an American businessman and former Democratic politician from Oregon who held local, state, and federal offices over three decades. After serving as the governor of Oregon, Goldschmidt is widely considered the most influential figure in the state's politics, both as an...
hired Francke to fill the corresponding position in Oregon. He was hired with a remit to address problems in the state's Department of Corrections (ODOC). During his tenure, he had been criticized by some in the Oregon Legislature for cost overrun
Cost overrun
A cost overrun, also known as a cost increase or budget overrun, is an unexpected cost incurred in excess of a budgeted amount due to an under-estimation of the actual cost during budgeting...
s and delays in a state prison construction program.
The murder
Oregon State Capitol
The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the state legislature and the offices of the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located in the state capital, Salem. The current building, constructed from 1936 to 1938, and expanded in 1977, is the third...
building) in Salem
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...
. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a stab wound to the heart suffered the night before, and also revealed other "defensive wounds". Francke was last seen alive by Dome Building staff at approximately 6:45 p.m. on January 17. Two senior staff leaving the Dome Building approximately 40 minutes later discovered his car parked in its designated spot outside the front entryway with the driver's door open. No obvious signs of forced entry on the vehicle were observed. The staffers locked and closed the car door, and returned to the Dome Building where they made numerous phone calls to other senior staffers in an effort to determine Francke's whereabouts, all to no avail. Security was notified at the nearby Communications Center, and the staffers left the Dome Building at approximately 8:05 p.m. Two other senior staffers, Richard Peterson, head of Institutions, and David Caulley, head of Planning and Budget, arrived at approximately 8:35 p.m. and conducted what they described as a meticulous search of the Dome Building, but found nothing amiss. They returned to their homes on the presumption that Francke was at a private dinner engagement. Police were never notified of the situation until the guard discovered the body nearly four hours later.
Given the nature of Francke's work, the possibility that the murder was a "hit" was immediately considered. An investigation commenced, and fifteen months later, Frank Gable, a small-time methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
dealer, was charged with the crime. A local teen runaway named Jodie Swearingen testified before a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
that she had witnessed the murder; police reports indicate that she had identified Gable as the perpetrator. She later recanted her testimony, instead claiming that another Salem drug dealer, Timothy Natividad, was the murderer.
At the trial, the state produced several witnesses (all of whom were criminal associates of Gable) who claimed that Gable confessed the crime to them after the fact. Swearingen was called to testify by the prosecution at the trial. No physical evidence was produced; however the prosecution was allowed to introduce as evidence a knife (purchased by investigators) which matched Francke's wounds; Gable's ex-wife testified that she had given Gable a similar knife.
On June 27, 1991, Gable was convicted of six counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Gable, currently incarcerated in the Nevada state prison system, continues to maintain his innocence.
Conspiracy theories
Many in the state of Oregon, among them Jim Hill and staff at two Portland newspapers, do not accept the official verdict, believing either that Gable is altogether innocent of the crime, or that he, or another perpetrator was a hired hit man rather than a chance car burglar. Corruption in the prison system was widely suspected by many in the state, and many believe that Francke's murder was ordered by corrections officials in order to end his investigation into alleged corruption. Among those who believe that Gable may be innocent is former state treasurer Jim HillJim Hill (Oregon politician)
Jim Hill is an attorney, financial consultant, and politician from the U.S. state of Oregon. He served two terms as Oregon State Treasurer from January 4, 1993 to January 1, 2001.-Education and personal:...
, who has called the case a "killing that won't go away". Adding to the discord are the physical attributes of the two individuals; Michael Francke was a SEAL
Seal
Seal commonly refers to:* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals many of which are commonly called seals* Seal , a device which helps prevent leakage, contain pressure, or exclude contamination where two systems join...
-trained ex-Navy veteran, standing about 6'3", weighing in at about 200 lbs., who normally carried a sidearm for protection. Frank Gable, by contrast, had no service or other self-defense training, stood a mere 5'8", weighed in at about 150 lbs, and had no history of physical confrontations with other men. To many observers, the idea that this skinny, wife-beating, meth addict could have physically overcome the much larger and better-equipped Francke, was simply not believable.
The Francke family, led by Francke's brother Kevin Francke, have also publicly expressed doubts about the official conclusions. Kevin Francke has claimed that prior to his death, Michael Francke warned him of a threat on his life, and told him that he had discovered a network of corruption in the department.
There are several theories as to who may have been the killer or killers, and who may have ordered a "hit" on Francke. Most alternate theories of the case propose Timothy Natividad (who was killed two weeks after the Francke murder) as the person who stabbed Francke. Theories as to who may have been behind the killing focus on two men high in the corrections hierarchy. One individual who has been named is Hoyt Cupp, the former warden of the Oregon State Penitentiary
Oregon State Penitentiary
Oregon State Penitentiary , the first state prison in Oregon, United States, was originally located in Portland in 1851. In 1866 it was moved to a site in Salem and enclosed by a reinforced concrete wall averaging in height...
; in 2007, a convicted felon
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
gave a series of interviews to Willamette Week in which he claimed that he witnessed Cupp and another (unnamed) corrections official pay Natividad $20,000; and that Natividad later informed him it was payment for killing Francke. Cupp died of cancer in 1990.
Another individual who has been named is Scott McAlister, who had been the assistant attorney general for the state of Oregon until he resigned shortly before Franke's death. McAlister subsequently became Inspector General of the Utah corrections department. An ex-girlfriend of McAlister told the Portland Tribune that McAlister had been in possession of internal police documents concerning the murder that he no longer had had any official reason to possess, and that she had overheard McAlister describe the killing as a "botched hit that was supposed to look like a suicide".
The McAlister theory gained credence in October 1991, when one of the private investigators who had worked on the Gable defense team, H. Wayne Holm, was killed by a Multnomah County Sheriff's deputy, Brian Martinek (now an assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau), allegedly during a "reverse sting" drug operation. Holm, who had been a former inmate in the Oregon Correction system during the early 1980s had assisted numerous other inmates with parole hearing presentations, and had known Scott McAlister, who represented the Parole and Probation Board during those hearings. Holm had offered the theory that the primary motivation for Francke's murder, was that he had discovered a plot by McAlister to "sell" paroles to inmates. Adding to the mix, was the fact that the person who had been appointed to fill Francke's office after his death in 1997, had been Fred Pierce, the longtime Sheriff of Multnomah County, and the man who had originally hired Martinek.
Much speculation has centered on a mysterious "man in the pinstriped suit", an unknown individual who was spotted by a corrections employee inside the corrections Dome Building, 90 minutes after closing time. The individual has never been identified. Another Dome Building employee, who worked as a Parole Board clerk, has stated the man in the pinstriped suit also matches the description she gave to police as the man who arrived at the Dome Building the day of the murder to repair the copy machine late in the afternoon, and was granted unprecedented access to remain in the building after hours to complete the repairs. The repairs were never completed, the machine was left in pieces, and neither the man in the pinstriped suit or Dennis Plante, the man who testified he was the copy machine repairman (but whom the Parole Board clerk states was not the man who worked on the copier), returned to complete the repairs, nor was any record of the service call found in the copier 'repair log' after the murder. Whether or not the individual has any relation to the killing is unknown, the individual does not resemble Gable.
Dale Penn, the current head of the Oregon Lottery
Oregon Lottery
The Oregon Lottery is run by the government of Oregon. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association .- History :The Oregon Lottery was enabled by an amendment to the Oregon Constitution, approved by voters in the 1984 general election. The Lottery began the next year, eventually offering...
and the former Marion County
Marion County, Oregon
Marion County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. It was originally named the Champooick District, after Champoeg, a meeting place on the Willamette River. On September 3, 1849, the territorial legislature renamed it in honor of Francis Marion, a Continental Army general of the...
district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
whose office oversaw the prosecution of Gable, states that he has "every confidence that Frank Gable is guilty and that this story (the Willamette Week article) is not true".
Press coverage
The case has become somewhat of a battleground between the three leading Portland newspapers, with The OregonianThe Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
backing the official version of what happened, and its rivals, the Portland Tribune
Portland Tribune
The Portland Tribune is a free weekly newspaper published each Thursday in Portland, Oregon, United States.The Tribune is part of the Pamplin Media Group, which publishes a number of community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area, and also owns and operates the talk radio station KPAM, and...
and (to a lesser extent) the Willamette Week
Willamette Week
Willamette Week is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Portland, Oregon, United States. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business and culture....
questioning the official record. In May 2005, the Oregonian published the results of an investigation into the case, which concluded that Gable was indeed the killer, and that the killing was a robbery gone wrong. The Tribune ran a rebuttal, claiming to have uncovered holes in the Oregonians reporting, which was followed by a further rebuttal by the Oregonian reporters in the newspaper's blog.
A leading advocate of the conspiracy theory is local journalist Phil Stanford
Phil Stanford
Phil Stanford is an American journalist and author based in Oregon. Stanford is best known for his work on the murder of Oregon Department of Corrections director Michael Francke and his efforts to prove the innocence of Frank Gable, the man who was convicted of the crime.His 1994 Oregonian series...
. Stanford has written extensively on the case, and wrote the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for a film based on the Francke murder, Without Evidence
Without Evidence
Without Evidence is a 1995 thriller co-written by Gill Dennis and Phil Stanford. The film was directed by Gill Dennis.-Plot:It is based on the true story of Michael Francke, who was the Head of Corrections for the state of Oregon before being murdered. Just before his murder, Francke visits his...
(1995), featuring a young Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
, in one of her first major roles, as Jodie Swearingen. Stanford, then a columnist for The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
, testified in the trial for the defense. He continued writing about the case in his Oregonian column until leaving the paper in 1994; he now writes for the Portland Tribune
Portland Tribune
The Portland Tribune is a free weekly newspaper published each Thursday in Portland, Oregon, United States.The Tribune is part of the Pamplin Media Group, which publishes a number of community newspapers in the Portland metropolitan area, and also owns and operates the talk radio station KPAM, and...
and continues to cover the case there.
In February 1991, prior to Gable's conviction, the Michael Francke story was featured on an episode of the TV program Unsolved Mysteries
Unsolved Mysteries
Unsolved Mysteries is an American television program, hosted by Robert Stack, from 1987 until 2002, and later by Dennis Farina, starting in 2008...
.
See also
- Harry MintoHarry MintoHarry Percy Minto was the superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary in the U.S. state of Oregon from 1914 until his death in 1915. An escaped inmate killed Minto in the line of duty.-Early life:...
, supervisor of Oregon State Penitentiary, killed in line of duty by inmate in 1915.