Convicted serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin was being held in the Hamilton County Justice Center late Saturday, whisked from a Missouri prison to face murder charges in an 18-year-old double slaying.
Mr. Franklin was arrested Saturday on two counts of aggravated murder, stemming from a 1980 sniper attack on two boys in Bond Hill. Mr. Franklin is accused of shooting cousins Dante Evans Brown, 13, and Darrell Lane, 14, from a railroad trestle as they walked to a convenience store along Reading Road.
He faces life in prison if convicted of the killings, which he has allegedly confessed to committing.
Mr. Franklin was brought to Hamilton County from Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Mo., where he is awaiting lethal injection for the 1977 slaying of a man outside a Clayton, Mo., synagogue. Mr. Franklin, who has admitted to killing 21 people in a cross-country murder spree between 1977 and 1980, was indicted for the boys' murders in April 1997.
Mr. Franklin was acquitted of and later confessed to shooting Vernon Jordan, then president of the National Urban League, in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1980. He also confessed to shooting and paralyzing Larry Flynt in 1978. He was indicted but never tried in that shooting. Mr. Franklin said he killed African-Americans and Jews because he had racist beliefs. Some of those killed were interracial couples. Mr. Flynt was targeted for portraying interracial couples in his magazine. Dante and Darrell allegedly were killed because they were black.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters could not be reached Saturday for comment. About a year ago, he said he sent Assistant Prosecutor Melissa Powers to Missouri to visit Mr. Franklin in prison in hopes of obtaining a confession to the Bond Hill killings. Mr. Franklin has said he confessed because he knows he cannot receive a death sentence since Ohio did not have a death-penalty law at the time of the killings.
Mr. Franklin also has accumulated eight life sentences for sniper slayings in Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. In addition to the slayings, he has claimed responsibility for 16 bank robberies, two bombings and wounding five people.
After Dante and Darrell were killed, dozens of area residents started a reward fund to flush out the killer. Nearly 30 Cincinnati Police Division investigators worked at some point on solving the killings.
Authorities have said Mr. Franklin always was considered a suspect, because the crime was similar to others he had committed and police knew he was in the area at the time.
Previous stories
RACIST KILLER CONFESSES TO SLAYING TWO BOYS HERE April 15, 1997
SNIPER FEARED OHIO ELECTRIC CHAIR April 16, 1997
FRANKLIN THOUGHT MESSAGE MISSED April 16, 1997
CASE CLOSED April 16, 1997
''REIGN OF TERROR'' April 16, 1997
HIGH FASHION PROSECUTOR GETS HER MAN Cliff Radel column, April 18, 1997
FRANKLIN: THERE COULD BE SURPRISES April 18, 1997
