Armed with what a source describes as ''a confession,'' prosecutors today will ask a Hamilton County grand jury to indict Mr. Franklin on two counts of aggravated murder for the June 8, 1980, shooting deaths of Dante Evans Brown and Darrell Lane.
Prosecutor Joseph Deters will announce the results of the grand jury's investigation this afternoon.
He declined to discuss specifics of the case or evidence until the grand jury has heard the matter. But he did describe the shooting of the boys as ''an act of evilness we have never seen in this com
munity.''
Dante, 13, of Fairmount, and Darrell, 14, of North Avondale, were shot from a nearby railroad trestle as they walked along Reading Road, heading to a convenience store. Both were African-American - a race, along with Jews, that Mr. Franklin repeatedly has admitted to despising.
Relatives of the boys still live in the area, and they spoke with Mr. Deters on Monday.
''This is still affecting them, as it would anybody,'' Mr. Deters said. ''They're exhibiting the same emptiness that you perceive with the families of any victims.''
The community was captivated by the tragedy. Dozens of people from throughout the Tristate donated money to a reward fund, which eventually was dissolved and returned when the case remained unsolved.
The slayings also consumed Cincinnati police: as many as 27 investigators, including all 14 homicide detectives, worked the case at some point.
Now, they are hoping the latest break can close the book on what has been one of the most notorious unsolved homicides in Cincinnati history.
Mr. Deters would not talk about any new evidence, saying only, ''We have a very good case.''
Though they never had enough to prove it, authorities always suspected Mr. Franklin was involved in the crime: it was similar to other crimes he had committed, and they know the Alabama native was in the Cincinnati area at the time of the sniper attack.
The old case file - never closed, but long ago declared inactive - contains information about the 23-year-old man who reported picking up a hitchhiker in the Bond Hill area about the time of the shootings. The hitchhiker resembled Mr. Franklin.
The file also contains details about a classified advertisement, offering a gun for sale for $225. The ad, which described the gun as ''fired five times,'' referred callers to the Florence motel that Mr. Franklin left the day after the sniper attack.
If indicted, Mr. Franklin would have to be brought to Ohio from death row in Missouri for his arraignment.
Because Ohio had no death penalty when Dante and Darrell were killed - it was declared unconstitutional in 1978 and was not reinstated until 1981 - the stiffest penalty Mr. Franklin could face here is life imprisonment.
Such a sentence would have little impact on his future.
In Missouri, he was ordered executed for the 1977 sniper shooting death of a man outside a Clayton, Mo., synagogue. Mr. Franklin also is serving six life sentences for two attacks in two states.
He has said race was the reason he killed an interracial couple in Wisconsin in 1977 (he has two life sentences there). Race also was the motive behind the slayings of two black men in Salt Lake City in 1980 as they jogged with white women.
He was given two life sentences by a Utah judge, and two more by a federal judge after the Justice Department charged him - he was pursued as a serial racist murderer - with civil rights violations.
He was acquitted of an assassination attempt on former National Urban League President Vernon Jordan Jr. in Fort Wayne, Ind., but years later, knowing he could never be retried, he admitted wounding Mr. Jordan.
He also has been indicted - but never tried - for the 1978 sniper attack outside a Georgia courthouse that left Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt paralyzed.
In February, Mr. Franklin acted as his own lawyer and told a Missouri jury that if it did not recommend a death sentence, he would kill again.
When the jury returned a death recommendation after 90 minutes of deliberation, Mr. Franklin gave a thumbs-up and said, ''Right on.''
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HATE KILLER SENTENCED TO DIE Feb. 28, 1997
