BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[evans]](/editions/1998/10/21/evans_120x179.jpg)
LaVon Evans, whose brother was killed by a sniper 18 years ago, reacts to the taped statement of Joseph Paul Franklin.
(Glenn Hartong photo)
| ZOOM |
|
For the past 18 years, LaVon Evans listened to stories about the night a stranger killed his older brother as he walked to the grocery store.
Joseph Paul Franklin
|
He remembers seeing his brother's picture on TV and watching his mother weep when police told her the news. Through it all, he says, he kept asking the same question.
"I wanted to know why," Mr. Evans said Tuesday. "No one could tell me that."
But when he finally got the answer Tuesday at the murder trial of Joseph Paul Franklin, it was almost too much for Mr. Evans to bear.
He muttered to himself and made an obscene gesture at Mr. Franklin as he listened to the convicted serial killer describe how he casually gunned down Mr. Evans' brother and cousin on June 8, 1980.
![[powers]](/editions/1998/10/21/powers_120x169.jpg)
Assistant prosecutor Melissa Powers displays a rifle ad she showed Franklin in prison. He confirmed it was the type of rifle he used.
(Glenn Hartong photo)
| ZOOM |
|
In a taped statement played in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, Mr. Franklin said he killed the two blacks boys because he "considered the blacks the ugliest people of all."
Moments later, a disgusted Mr. Evans walked out of the courtroom. "It was more than I expected," he said. "He just explained it like it was nothing. That right there just hurt me."
Although details about Mr. Franklin's statement had been available
since last month, Tuesday was the first time family members were able to hear the tape. Many of them glared at Mr. Franklin as they listened to his chilling, matter-of-fact description of the shootings.
Mr. Franklin, who has been linked to as many as 18 slayings nationwide, remained silent but occasionally glanced at Mr. Evans and his family.
"He ain't sorry for what he did, and I'll never forgive him anyway," Mr. Evans said. "He's going to be judged now, finally."
DarrellLane
Dante Evans Brown
|
Prosecutors say Mr. Franklin used a .44-caliber Ruger rifle to shoot the boys -- Darrell Lane, 14, and Dante Evans Brown, 13 -- as they walked along Reading Road in Bond Hill on their way to the store.
They charged him with the crime last year after he gave a statement to assistant prosecutor Melissa Powers that implicated him in the shootings. In testimony Tuesday, Ms. Powers said Mr. Franklin was "in control" of the interview and voluntarily discussed the crime.
When she met with him at a Missouri prison, where he is on death row for another murder, she said he didn't waste any time getting to the point.
"You know I did it," she recalled him saying. "I killed those dudes."
Mr. Franklin has said he was tricked into confessing because Ms. Powers is attractive and he just wanted to talk with her.
But a police detective who spoke with him a few weeks later said Mr. Franklin seemed to know what he was doing. The detective, Michael O'Brien, said Mr. Franklin told him he would never confess to a crime he didn't commit.
"That would be foolish," he recalled Mr. Franklin saying. "I've already got enough notches on my gun, if you know what I mean."
The trial is expected to conclude today with closing arguments.
![[evans]](/editions/1998/10/21/evans_336x500.jpg)
![[powers]](/editions/1998/10/21/powers_356x500.jpg)