Opal Jo Jennings
JonesieCat
sound like the low-IQ suspect may have been led by the nose by
investigators. Anybody in Texas been hearing news reports or anything? No
physical evidence found in his home or car seems significant to me. Maggie
is particularly good at 'reading' these types of cases and related evidence
or absence of same. Maybe she'll chime in here too?
JonesieCat
http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/172462_opal_18met.ART.html
2nd Opal trial begins today
Defense is expected to concentrate on police interrogation of suspect
09/18/2000
By Debra Dennis / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH - On the day 6-year-old Opal Jo Jennings disappeared from outside
her grandparents' Saginaw home, Richard Lee Franks took the girl to eat and
rejected her sexual advances, he later told police.
That statement, which Mr. Franks has since recanted, is expected to become a
central part of the defense and prosecution case during his kidnapping trial
that begins Monday.
A June trial in the March 26, 1999, kidnapping ended in a hung jury. On
Monday, jury selection begins in a second trial where Mr. Franks, 31, of
Fort Worth, will again try to prove he did not kidnap Opal.
Defense attorney Leon Haley Jr. said much of the trial will focus on the
police interrogation in which Mr. Franks admitted he had contact with the
girl.
"We are prepared to respond to anything they bring in," said Mr. Haley, who
is representing Mr. Franks along with L. Patrick Davis.
The defense may rely on psychologists who are prepared to testify that Mr.
Franks is of below-average intelligence and is easily manipulated, Mr. Haley
said.
Mr. Franks, who is charged with one count of aggravated kidnapping, goes on
trial before State District Judge Robert Gill.
In June, Judge Gill, of the 213th District Court, declared a hung jury after
jurors in the two-day trial deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of conviction.
"We're going to maintain our same strategy that, based on his mental state,
it was inappropriate for them to take a statement from him and that his
statement was false," Mr. Haley said.
He maintains that Mr. Franks, who was arrested 13 months ago, has a low I.Q.
and was illegally detained by investigators during a 12-hour questioning
session. It was in that session that Mr. Franks told authorities he took the
girl to get something to eat, rejected her sexual advances and then released
her unharmed. Mr. Franks immediately recanted his statements to police.
"We hope this jury will be as opened-minded as the last one and give our
client a fair trial. If they give him a fair trial, they will find him not
guilty," said Mr. Haley.
Tarrant County assistant district attorneys Gregory Miller, Robert Foran and
Lisa Callaghan will lead the state's case against the man they believe
kidnapped Opal.
"In some respects, the people who testified last time will testify again,
but it's going to be a different trial," said Mr. Miller, who declined to
elaborate.
Mr. Franks is being held in the Tarrant County jail where he has been since
his arrest in August 1999. He is being held on a $1 million bail. If
convicted of aggravated kidnapping, he could receive a life sentence.
In June, the state rested its case after investigators reported they had
received more than 3,000 leads on the girl's abduction.
Mr. Franks emerged as a suspect shortly after the girl's abduction.
Investigators said they used a search warrant to look for clues inside Mr.
Franks' car and home, but found no physical evidence linking him to the
girl's disappearance.
Opal was playing in an empty lot with two playmates when a man with long
hair drove up in a dark-colored car and snatched her, authorities said. Two
eyewitnesses, both young children, said Opal was forced into the car.
Opal's abduction launched many searches around the Tarrant County city where
she lived with her grandparents. The girl has never been found.
Cliff or Linda Griffith
>
> Has anyone been following this? The way this article is written, it does
> sound like the low-IQ suspect may have been led by the nose by
> investigators. Anybody in Texas been hearing news reports or anything? No
> physical evidence found in his home or car seems significant to me. Maggie
> is particularly good at 'reading' these types of cases and related evidence
> or absence of same. Maybe she'll chime in here too?
> JonesieCat
>
> http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/172462_opal_18met.ART.html
I've been very interested in this case, but I missed the news reports
about the trial today. Maybe tomorrow I'll have better luck. Thing is,
Ricky Franks already has a record for molestation, and his wife admitted
that she lied when she provided his alibi. Friends and neighbors said
Ricky always wore his hair long, but immediately following Opal's
disappearance, he got it cut short. I could've sworn he admitted
fondling Opal, but perhaps not. So far, it seems to be a matter of
circumstantial evidence, Ricky's statement(s), and the similarity of his
car to the one driven by the abductor. Neighbors also reported Ricky's
car cruising through Opal's grandmother's neighborhood right before Opal
was taken.
Neither Ricky nor his wife is a rocket scientist, but that low-IQ
defense has already been attempted and defeated here twice recently.
Two low-IQ young men were convicted of murdering a low-IQ girl who
thought they were her friends, and the guys were stopped at the border
as they tried to flee into Mexico. OTOH, they confessed, gleefully.
Linda
Cliff or Linda Griffith
aesthetically-pleasing at the website, but I've "copied" it below
anyway.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:AOLNEWS6/1:AOLNEWS60919100.html
Ex-trusties testify in 2nd trial of Opal suspect
in Fort Worth
By Rebeca Rodriguez
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- Kidnapping suspect Richard Franks
told several
inmates that he picked up 6-year-old Opal
Jennings, took her to a
Saginaw convenience store and dropped her off, but
that he would
never be indicted because investigators would
never find a body,
two former Tarrant County Jail trusties testified
in Franks' second
trial Tuesday.
Opal has never been found, but Franks was indicted
on a charge of
aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of the
Saginaw
kindergartner from near her home on March 26,
1999.
Franks' first trial, in June, on the same charge
ended in a hung jury.
Although there are a few new faces testifying at
the second trial in
state District Judge Robert Gill's court, many of
the witnesses and
legal arguments are expected to be similar to
those from the initial
proceeding.
Prosecutors Lisa Callaghan and Greg Miller
presented witnesses who
testified to Franks' ability to converse easily,
hold down a job and
interact with people, in an effort to dispute the
defense claim that
Franks' low IQ makes him an easy target for
exploitation.
Franks "is not at all the helpless or hopeless
individual that some
would have you believe," Callaghan said in her
opening statement.
But defense attorney Leon Haley said in the
state's "rush to
judgment" and eagerness to solve the high-profile
case, his client
has become a scapegoat despite a lack of physical
evidence linking
him to Opal's abduction.
"To this very moment, there is no evidence, no
blood, no
fingerprints, no saliva, absolutely nothing,"
Haley said.
Franks has been in jail since his August 1999
arrest.
On Tuesday, 13 witnesses took the stand, including
two of Opal's
aunts, two former jail inmates, one of Franks'
former employers and
a 5-year-old boy who was playing with Opal the day
she
disappeared.
The inmates, who were in the Tarrant County Jail
with Franks, said
he told them that he took Opal to a convenience
store and dropped
her off but that the lack of a body meant he would
never be
indicted or convicted
Defense counsel tried to challenge one inmate's
credibility by
pointing out that his sentence was greatly reduced
after he agreed
to testify against Franks.
As before, Haley argued that because of his low
IQ, Franks was
easily manipulated into confessing to the crime
after hours of
intimidating interviews with several federal and
local agents.
However, witness Myra Stephenson testified that
Franks worked at
her Decatur Golden Fried Chicken restaurant about
six years ago,
and that he was fully capable of attending to
customers and
running a computerized cash register that
automatically totals
orders.
"Ricky was not dumb," Stephenson said.
Many of Opal's relatives, including her mother,
Leola Sanderford,
and grandparents Audrey Sanderford and Robert
Sanderford,
watched the proceedings. Audrey Sanderford
occasionally put her
head in her hands.
Franks sat slouched in his chair and showed little
emotion. Several
members of his family sat behind him in the
courtroom. Outside, his
wife, Judy Franks, sat on a bench and waited to
give her husband
his lunch: two burritos, a Dr Pepper and two bags
of M&Ms.
"He's innocent," said Judy Franks, who did not
enter the courtroom.
"He's not the one that did it."
Judy Franks said she plans to stick by her husband
regardless of the
verdict. A conviction, however, would be hard to
handle, she said.
"I'll probably have a nervous breakdown," she
said. "No one else
loves their husband like I do. [ On Monday] I got
to kiss him and
hug him. I'm so glad I got to do that."
Rebeca Rodriguez, (817) 390-7754
JonesieCat
"Cliff or Linda Griffith" <grif...@home.com> wrote in message
news:39C855D7...@home.com...
> > http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/172462_opal_18met.ART.html
>
> I've been very interested in this case, but I missed the news reports
> about the trial today. Maybe tomorrow I'll have better luck. Thing is,
> Ricky Franks already has a record for molestation, and his wife admitted
> that she lied when she provided his alibi. Friends and neighbors said
> Ricky always wore his hair long, but immediately following Opal's
> disappearance, he got it cut short. I could've sworn he admitted
> fondling Opal, but perhaps not. So far, it seems to be a matter of
> circumstantial evidence, Ricky's statement(s), and the similarity of his
> car to the one driven by the abductor. Neighbors also reported Ricky's
> car cruising through Opal's grandmother's neighborhood right before Opal
> was taken.
>
> Neither Ricky nor his wife is a rocket scientist, but that low-IQ
> defense has already been attempted and defeated here twice recently.
> Two low-IQ young men were convicted of murdering a low-IQ girl who
> thought they were her friends, and the guys were stopped at the border
> as they tried to flee into Mexico. OTOH, they confessed, gleefully.
>
> Linda
Thank you, Linda. I remember when they first arrested him, it seemed like a
slam dunk. Like you, I also thought they got him to admit to more. In any
case, for him to be interrogated for such a long time and *then* to finally
say he took her to eat, and fought her sexual advances(!), shows he's a few
bricks short of a load, and has the mentality of a pervert, seems to me.
And it also seems the police could have put words in his mouth and he
stupidly thought he could go home if he said he saw her but didn't hurt her.
When "they" saw "his car" in the vicinity, did someone write down the
license no.? If so, makes it stronger evidence, but if not... Thing is,
it's my understanding that any of us would be shocked and angry if we only
knew how many sex offenders et al lived amongst us, and of course they're
the first ones checked out by police. And sometimes it *is* one of the
usual suspects who is guilty, but often it's not. A full jury wasn't
convinced of his guilt the first time around, and they heard everything
presumably, so I'm still doubtful about his guilt. Orig, when he was
arrested, I thought he *must* be guilty to say what he said about her and
her "sexual advances", but now I'm wondering. I can't get over that there's
no physical evidence in his car. If she was in that car, there is evidence
there. So either the evidence collection/analysis was shoddy, or, she
wasn't in the car and he's not guilty. Right? Cleaning the car wouldn't
get everything, as we all know - or would it??
And where in the world would this guy have hidden her body such that it
couldn't be found?
I hope you post everything you hear and read about this case, Linda. It's
become very compelling.
JC
JonesieCat
So we're to take this as some kind of jailhouse confession: "The inmates,
who were in the Tarrant County Jail with Franks, said he told them that he
took Opal to a convenience store and dropped her off but that the lack of a
body meant he would never be indicted or convicted." Well, maybe Franks
*did* tell them that. It just makes him sound dumber. Paraphrased, he said
he dropped her off at a store and there's no body. Where's the confession
part? Or was he just trying to impress the other inmates with what the
police had already gotten him to say?
And testimony that the guy isn't a moron is from somebody he worked for six
years ago, running a cash register that did addition for him. ""Ricky was
not dumb," Stephenson said." I don't find that very compelling evidence.
Wonder if the jury does.
And no physical evidence.... Maybe the guy is guilty as sin. It would be
relief to have him put away in that case. But how can there be no physical
evidence, not in car or house? Can't wait to see what the other witness
have to say.
Thx for posting this article/link, Linda.
JC
Maggie
>Has anyone been following this? The way this article is written, it does
>sound like the low-IQ suspect may have been led by the nose by
>investigators. Anybody in Texas been hearing news reports or anything? No
>physical evidence found in his home or car seems significant to me. Maggie
>is particularly good at 'reading' these types of cases and related evidence
>or absence of same. Maybe she'll chime in here too?
>JonesieCat
>
>http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/172462_opal_18met.ART.html
>
>2nd Opal trial begins today
>Defense is expected to concentrate on police interrogation of suspect
<snip>
***Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jonsie Cat. To tell you the truth I
haven't been following this one, but on first read (of the additional
information provided by--was it?--Linda), he sounds guilty. I'll keep my eyes
open, though. In general, like you, I'm very suspicious of these low-IQ /no
physical evidence/long interrogation confessions. OTOH, most criminals (who
are caught, anyway) are really, really dumb--sure looks like, though, they
wouldn't be smart enough to hide *all* the physical evidence.
Maggie
Fun Facts:
Murderers who kill male victims receive 40% shorter sentences than murderers
who kill female victims (AOTBE).