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Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County Case #
97-20160
Sentencing
Judge: The Honorable Nancy Moate Ley
Attorney, Trial:
Pro Se / Michael Schwartzberg & Richard Watts – Private
Attorney, Direct
Appeal: Douglas Connor – Assistant Public Defender
Attorney,
Collateral Appeals: Eric Pinkard & Pro Se – CCRC-M
Date of Offense:
03/13/89 – 06/16/89
Date of
Sentence: 11/22/02
Circumstances of Offense:
In the spring of 1989, Franklin Floyd was living
under an alias with his daughter Sharon and her son. Sharon and Cheryl
Commesso worked as exotic dancers at a club.
Shortly after St.
Patrick’s Day of 1989, Floyd and Commesso were engaged in a heated
argument outside the club, when a coworker of Commesso intervened.
Floyd claimed that Commesso was responsible for Sharon’s loss of
Medicaid coverage for her son (Floyd’s grandson). The coworker also
knew that Floyd had recently struck Commesso and caused a bruise on her
face.
Commesso was last seen alive during the first week of
April 1989. She left her house with a packed bag and told her relatives
that she would see them the following week. Her car was located at the
St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport, where it had been parked since April
7, 1989.
In May of 1989, Floyd told a neighbor that he was
going on vacation and asked the neighbor to mow the lawn and collect his
mail. On June 15, 1989, Floyd and Sharon, using assumed names, married
in New Orleans. On June 16, 1989, Floyd’s trailer burned down, and
Floyd later called the neighbor and asked that his mail be burned.
In March of 1995, landscape workers found the
skeletal remains of Commesso in an area off Interstate 275 in Pinellas
County, Florida. Roots growing in the skeleton indicated her remains
had been there for six or seven years.
In March of 1995, the owner of a Kansas auto repair
business found a large envelope stuck between the truck bed and the top
of the gas tank of a truck he had recently purchased at an auction.
In
the envelope, he found 97 small and irregularly cropped photos,
including many pictures of a woman, beaten and bound, later
identified as Commesso. The truck was traced back to Floyd, who had
stolen it in Oklahoma in September 1994, but had abandoned it in Texas
the following month.
The medical examiner determined that injuries to the
cheek of Commesso’s skull were consistent with injuries sustained by
Commesso in the pictures recovered from the truck. Also, similarities
in clothing and jewelry were found between the pictures of Commesso and
items found with her remains.
One of the pictures of Commesso contained
an image of someone else’s thumb, which was found by an FBI analyst to
contain multiple similarities to Floyd’s thumb. Many of the pictures
contained images of furniture, a boat, and areas of a trailer, all of
which belonged to Floyd.
Additional Information:
After
serving a federal prison sentence for a 1963 bank robbery conviction,
Floyd absconded from federal parole in 1973. He was a fugitive at the
time of the Commesso murder.
Floyd also
has a 1995 federal conviction for carjacking and kidnapping, as well as
a 1997 Oklahoma conviction for burglary with intent to assault and
assault with a dangerous weapon.
Trial Summary:
11/12/97 Indicted on one count of First-Degree Murder
09/27/02 Jury returned a guilty verdict on the sole count of
the indictment
10/01/02 Jury recommended death by a vote of 12-0
11/22/02 Sentenced to Death
Case Information:
Floyd
filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 01/09/03,
raising the following issues: sufficiency of evidence, admission of
collateral crime evidence, admission of photographic evidence, admission
of expert testimony, improper State closing argument, applicability of Ring v. Arizona, and applicability of the Eighth Amendment.
On
10/12/05, the FSC affirmed the conviction and sentence.
Floyd
filed a 3.851 Motion with the Circuit Court on 06/05/06 that is pending.
Floyd
filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court,
Middle District, on 06/06/06 that is pending.
FloridaCapitalCases.state.fl.us
Sentenced to death, killer
remains defiant
By Candace Rondeaux
- St. Petersburg Times
November 23, 2002
LARGO -- If Franklin Delano Floyd was at all
surprised when a judge sentenced him to death on Friday, he certainly
didn't show it.
Floyd smiled ironically and shook his head, as
a Pinellas-Pasco judge read the final words of the sentence affirming a
jury's unanimous recommendation to put him to death for the 1989 murder
of a 19-year-old Brandon woman.
The victim's family and a handful of the jurors
who convicted Floyd in October for killing Cheryl Ann Commesso were in
the courtroom as Floyd, 59, read a long, defiant statement railing
against the death penalty. As he did repeatedly during his September
trial, Floyd denied dumping Commesso's body along Interstate 275. He
claimed the FBI doctored photos taken before her death to frame him for
the murder.
"I can't speak anything when I'm dead, so I
speak it now: I am not guilty," he declared.
When the time came for Pinellas-Pasco Circuit
Judge Nancy Moate Ley to read the order sentencing him to death, she
took a dim view of his history of such outbursts in court, calling his
behavior "deplorable."
Ley gave weight to Floyd's "joyless" upbringing
in an orphanage and his history of personality disorders. But the judge
said his criminal history and the gruesome circumstances surrounding
Commesso's murder outweighed those factors.
"Based on the aggravating factors found in this
case, it was not surprising the jury found unanimously that (Floyd)
should be put to death," Ley said.
When she finished reading her ruling, the judge
asked God to have mercy on Floyd's soul.
"We don't need your mercy, judge," Floyd loudly
retorted.
The victim's family clasped hands and let out a
sigh of relief as Ley handed down the sentence.
"I'm just glad it's over with now, and that he
got his due justice," John Commesso, the victim's father said.
His wife, Ellen Commesso, echoed that sentiment.
"I hope they don't take long to execute him,"
she said.
But outside the courtroom,
Floyd's defense attorney, Michael Schwartzberg, promised that would not
be the case. Schwartzberg said he was not surprised by the judge's
decision and plans to appeal.
Man convicted in 'Jane Doe'
killing
After a nine-day trial and four hours of
deliberation, the 59-year-old man now faces the death penalty.
By William R. Levesque
- St. Petersburg Times
September 28, 2002
LARGO -- Pinellas prosecutors portrayed
Franklin Delano Floyd as a man with a violent temper who, in a fit of
anger, killed a 19-year-old Brandon woman before dumping her body off
Interstate 275 in 1989.
Floyd professed his innocence. But late Friday,
a jury convicted him of first-degree murder.
After a nine-day trial, jurors deliberated for
about four hours before finding Floyd, 59, guilty of the killing of
Cheryl Ann Commesso. Floyd faces the death penalty when the sentencing
phase of his trial begins on Monday.
Floyd was irate when a clerk announced the
verdict. As defense attorney Michael Schwartzberg tried to calm him,
Floyd told jurors, "Look me in the face."
Then he pointed to prosecutors and told his
attorney, "They framed me." After jurors left, he cussed at Pinellas-Pasco
Judge Nancy Moate Ley.
"I hope you sleep good," Floyd told Ley.
"Thank you, Mr. Floyd," she said calmly.
For Commesso's family, the verdict ends 13
years of waiting.
"Justice has been served," said John Commesso,
55, of Valrico, the victim's father. "It took 13 years. We're waiting
for one more thing. And that's the death penalty."
No witness saw Franklin Delano Floyd pump two
bullets into the victim's head. No confession links him to the crime.
Commesso's skeletal remains were found off
Interstate 275 in Pinellas more than six years after she was killed with
two shots to the back of the head.
Commesso, a nude dancer, was known simply as
"Jane Doe I-275" before she was eventually identified.
But Pinellas prosecutors Bruce Bartlett and
Glenn Martin told jurors the best evidence of Floyd's guilt was a series
of photos of a bound and blindfolded Commesso. They said Floyd took the
pictures shortly before killing her.
The pictures were found wedged over the gas
tank of a pickup truck Floyd stole during an unrelated kidnapping in
Oklahoma. He is already serving a life sentence after his conviction in
that case.
After the kidnapping, the truck was sold and
its new owner found the pictures.
The person in the photo is wearing the same
clothing as found with the skeleton on I-275. Some jewelry is the same.
And the woman in the photo, witnesses said, was definitely Commesso.
In addition, the photographer's thumb can be
seen in several photos and is nearly identical to Floyd's.
In addition, the woman in the photos had moles
identical to Commesso's, in addition to other similarities.
"Is this a coincidence?" Bartlett said. "Absolutely
not."
Schwartzberg said
prosecutors can't prove the woman is Commesso and cannot positively link
the photos to Floyd.
The murder of Cheryl Commesso
A tortured trail
St. Petersburg Times
June 7, 1997
How police think Cheryl Ann Commesso wound up in muck along I-275
The remains of a young woman are found alongside Interstate 275 in
Pinellas County. The bones have sunk into the marsh, her clothes ragged
from years of mud and rain. Identifying her would seem impossible. But
in the two years since the discovery, the investigation has gone from
complex to bizarre.
It is a story of a high school dropout who made friends, and a living,
in nude bars between Tampa and Orlando.
One of those ""friends,'' it turns out, was a federal fugitive name
Franklin Delano Floyd, a man who has been suspected of murder,
kidnapping, stalking and numerous other charges.
""Without a doubt, Franklin Floyd is one of the most evil people I've
ever met in my life,'' Oklahoma prosecutor Lisa Hammond said Friday.
In the end, police say, Cheryl Ann Commesso may wind up being a bit
player in a tragedy spanning several years, several states and several
lives.
She may have died simply because of a friendship.
A father and "daughter'
Franklin Delano Floyd grew up in Georgia with three sisters and a
brother. The children were raised in an orphanage in Hapeville when the
father died and the mother ran off.
At 19, Floyd kidnapped a 4-year-old girl from a Hapeville bowling alley.
He was arrested but escaped a year later. He was arrested again after
robbing a bank in Macon, Ga.
He served 10 years in prison, was released on parole and disappeared in
1973, the same year investigators say they think he abducted another 4-year-old
girl.
Floyd has said he did not kidnap her. The girl, he said, was abandoned
by her mother, a ""drunk and drug addict'' whose name he had forgotten.
The two moved about several states but by 1984 had settled in Atlanta.
Floyd was going by the name Warren Marshall. His ""daughter,'' Sharon
was enrolled at Forest Park High School in Clayton County.
Teachers remember Sharon as a popular teenager who excelled in school.
She ran for junior class office and had glamour shots made for her
poster.
Jennifer Tanner met Sharon at a camp for student council members in the
Atlanta area. She still remembers calling Sharon at home after the camp,
and a man who said he was Sharon's father answered the phone. He was
irate that someone had their home number.
""I just thought her Dad was just strict,'' Tanner said.
He eventually allowed their friendship to grow, even though he
discouraged boyfriends.
Once, Sharon called Tanner into her bedroom and showed her lingerie that
she said her father had bought her. He was obsessed with Sharon, often
taking photographs and talking about her beauty.
Though Sharon had won a scholarship to Georgia Tech, she became pregnant
and ran off to Alabama to be with a boyfriend. The boyfriend woke up one
morning to find a note from Sharon, saying her father had taken her away.
An abandoned Corvette
By April 1988, the Marshalls had moved to the Tampa area.
Sharon gave birth to a son, Michael. To support the family, she began
working in adult clubs such as the Mons Venus in Tampa.
It was there she met Cheryl Ann Commesso. They were instant friends.
Commesso had moved to Brandon with her family when she was 8. At Brandon
High School, she sang in the chorus and danced. In 1987, Commesso
competed in the Miss Brandon Pageant.
A videotape shows her in a white swimsuit, walking almost hesitantly
down the stage and staring blankly into the audience. During her senior
year, relatives say, she dropped out and began to run away.
""She was a smart child,'' said her aunt, Joyce Haughom of Tampa. ""But
you know kids get into things. . . . She wanted to grow up fast.''
She worked at the World Famous Doll House in Orlando, and her father
helped her get a loan to buy a red Corvette. She made enough money
working nude bars between Orlando and Tampa to pay for breast implants.
She no longer was the shy teenager.
She wanted to pose for Playboy and other magazines, her mother, Lois
Commesso, has said.
Her parents were estranged, but Commesso came back to Tampa to live with
her father. One night in April 1989, she left his house, planning to
spend the night with a friend. She promised to call in the morning.
The phone never rang.
Her Corvette was found abandoned, and her family reported her missing.
Her mother called the Mons Venus, only to be told that her daughter may
have gone to dance in Miami. The family did not believe it. She would
never leave her Corvette, they said.
Marriage, new identities
Within weeks of the disappearance, the Marshalls moved first to New
Orleans, where they were married, and later to Tulsa.
He became Clarence Marcus Hughes. She was Tonya Dawn Tadlock.
Again, she worked as a dancer in adult clubs. She was always very
secretive about her background, saying nothing except all of her
relatives were dead.
In April 1990, she was walking to a motel outside Oklahoma City when she
was struck by a hit-and-run driver. She never regained consciousness and
died five days later. Her new husband was considered a suspect, but he
had an alibi:
He had been back at the motel, waiting for her.
Her co-workers were concerned because she had told them she wanted to
leave the man named Clarence Hughes. She had met a new boyfriend in the
club, but she was afraid.
Investigators, still looking at the new husband as a suspect in the hit-and-run,
discovered through fingerprint analysis that he actually was named Floyd
- and had been a federal fugitive for 17 years.
Not long after Sharon's death, Floyd was placed back on parole from 1973
federal charges. He gave Sharon's young son, Michael, to state welfare
officials. Blood tests later showed that Floyd was not the biological
father.
Floyd began working as a maintenance man at an apartment complex. A
woman who lived there returned home to find Floyd in the bushes. He
emerged with a knife, cutting her as she tried to defend herself.
He was arrested. But a week before he was scheduled to appear in court
for attacking the woman, Floyd had more important matters on his mind.
One Monday afternoon in September 1994, he went to an elementary school
in Choctaw, Okla., where young Michael was in first grade.
Pieces to strange puzzle
Wearing a rumpled suit, Floyd walked into the office of principal James
Davis and announced he needed help getting his son.
""I think I'd better tell you I've got a gun in my pocket, and I'd
better show it to you. . . . I'm ready to die, and if you don't help me,
you won't live.''
Floyd left the school with the boy and the principal. He drove the
principal's pickup to woods, then cuffed the principal to a tree, not
far from where Michael lived with his new foster parents.
In the nationwide search for Michael, investigators pieced together
details of the strange life between Floyd and the boy's mother. The FBI
traced him to Texas and to Kansas, where the principal's pickup broke
down.
The mechanic repairing the truck later found a package taped to the gas
tank. Inside were more than three dozen photos of a scantily clad girls.
Several other photos showed a different young woman, who had been beaten,
with parts of her body exposed.
Investigators were puzzled.
In November, Floyd got a job as a used car salesman in Louisville, Ky.
For weeks, he lived in a Victorian house. Neighbors noticed he always
seemed to wear clothes from thrift stores. He could be heard walking in
his apartment all night long.
He never mentioned a son. Instead, he talked incessantly about a
daughter, who he said was a prostitute. He showed photos of her.
Neighbor Terry Evans said he befriended Floyd until one night when Floyd
wanted to stay in Evans' apartment to watch a movie and refused to leave.
""He wanted to watch The Fugitive on TV,'' Evans said. ""It turns out he
was a fugitive.''
He finally was arrested at the used car lot for kidnapping young Michael
and his principal. The boy never has been found.
The next spring, in March 1995, Floyd had been returned to Oklahoma to
stand trial.
Several thousands miles away in Florida, a landscaper was taking a break
from clearing brush near Interstate 275 when he saw a skul near the
fence, close to the Gandy Boulevard exit.
Sculpting a face
A team of detectives and forensic experts spent four days digging in
thick roots and muck before finding 90 percent of a skeleton. They also
found clothing, jewelry and a breast implant.
Detectives reviewed five years of missing person reports but found no
leads. A forensic sculptor from Oklahoma used the skull to create a
likeness of the victim. Nobody recognized her.
Then in 1996, the FBI had determined Floyd had been in the Tampa Bay
area. They also realized the significance of the photos of the beaten
woman. Investigators in St. Petersburg searched back yet another year
and found Commesso had been reported missing. She had been a dancer.
Dental records confirmed the remains were Commesso's.
Detectives went to Oklahoma to question Floyd, where he was sentenced to
52 yeas in federal prison on kidnapping charges, but still awaits trial
on state charges. Floyd has denied being involved in the Commesso
slaying.
Detectives aren't so sure: Her bones were found at the freeway's exit to
Pinellas Park. She had been shot, and Floyd was known to use guns. Floyd
likely was the last to see Commesso alive.
Commesso's remains were returned late last year to her family in New
York. Relatives in Tampa had a quiet memorial service.
""The family has put this to rest,'' said her uncle, John Haughom. ""We
have closure.''
- Information for this story comes from court files, police interviews
and articles published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and the
Courier-Journal in Kentucky.
WHO WAS SHE?
In March 1995, a team of detectives and forensic experts spent four days
digging amid thick cypress roots and sifting mucky soil beside
Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg before finding 90 percent of a woman's
skeleton. A forensic sculptor later attached erasers and clay to the
skull to recreate the likeness at left of the slain woman. A tip more
than a year later help police finally identify the dead woman as Cheryl
Ann Commesso.
CHERYL ANN COMMESSO, had been missing for six years when her skeleton
was found. She had lived in Brandon and was 18 when she became friends
with Sharon Marshall. They worked together at an adult club in Tampa.
She disappeared in April 1989.
SHARON MARSHALL likely was kidnapped as a young girl. She lived with
Franklin Delano Floyd in Tampa Bay, working as an exotic dancer when she
was a teenager. She later married Floyd, but was killed mysteriously by
a hit-and-run driver in Oklahoma.
Key events
+ 1973: After his release from prison, Franklin Floyd kidnapped a young
girl, police believe. They don't know where she was taken from or who
she is.
+ 1975: Two years later, Floyd enrolled the girl in elementary school in
Oklahoma, saying she was his daughter. He was using the name Trenton B.
Davis. She was called Suzanne.
+ 1984: Nine years later, he went by the name Warren Marshall when
enrolling her as his daughter, Sharon, at Forest Park High School in
Clayton County, Ga. The girl went on to graduate with honors. But she
became pregnant - and she and her father soon disappeared.
+ 1988: In Hillsborough County, they lived in a mobile home park on 28th
Street near Cockroach Bay and at the Town & Country park in Valrico. She
gave birth to a boy named Michael on April 21, 1988.
+ 1989: They all were living at the Golden Lantern trailer park at 7950
Park Blvd. near Pinellas Park. Sharon worked as an exotic dancer at Mons
Venus in Tampa and met a teenager named Cheryl Ann Commesso. The two
became friends. Commesso disappeared in April 1989.
+ Two months later, Sharon and her ""father'' were married in New
Orleans. He used the name Clarence Marcus Hughes. She was Tonya Dawn
Tadlock.
+ 1990: In April, the woman known as Tonya Dawn, still working as a
dancer, was walking along a busy Oklahoma highway when she was struck by
a hit-and-run driver. Her son, Michael, was placed in foster care.
+ 1994: Floyd tried to get legal custody of the boy but failed. In
September 1994, Floyd kidnapped Michael and his school principal. The
principal was found, alive, in a woods in Oklahoma. The boy is still
missing.
+ Floyd was arrested in November 1994 in Louisville, Ky. He since has
been convicted on kidnapping charges. Jailed in Oklahoma, he remains a
suspect in the hit-and-run death. Police also consider him a possible
suspect in the death of Cheryl Ann Commesso.
+ 1995: Skeletal remains were found along Interestate 275 in March.
Police identify the remains as Commesso in summer 1996.
Franklin Floyd Timeline
Officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com
June 17th, 1943 *** Franklin Delano Floyd is born in
Barnsville, Georgia. His father is Thomas H. Floyd, his mother Della
Jewel Floyd(maiden name was Fowler.) Siblings Dorothy, Billy, Shirley ,
and sister Tommye
June 1944/ Floyd's father dies.
January 21, 1946/ Floyd children placed in Georgia Baptist Children's
home in Hapeville Georgia by their mother. Later Dorothy is moved to an
orphanage in Pinewood, GA
1948/ Della Floyd is married in Broward County, Florida.
1952 / Della divorces her husband.
May 15, 1952, Della marries yet another man in West Palm Beach, Florida.
They divorce eventually, he re-marries another woman in 1960 in
Minneapolis, Indiana.
October 30, 1955/ Della's fourth husband was working at a service
station in Chicago at 264 N. Western Ave. There is a robbery (doesn't
involve Franklin) on that date and it made the papers.
1957 Dorothy living for the first time in Sumpter, SC, her mother comes
to visit. Dorothy tries to send her mother home by bus, an unpleasant
incident occurs and Della is arrested for drunk and disorderly and is
jailed in Sumpter for several months in 1956.
June 11, 1959/Franklin runs away from children's home.
July 11, 1959/ Franklin enlists in the U.S. Army under a fictitious age.
Serves in Missouri and Oklahoma.
December 1959/ Franklin is kicked out of the army because he is too
young and forged his papers. Franklin is sent by bus to his sister
Dorothy's house in Gainesville, GA. Her husband sends him away.
February 19, 1960 Franklin breaks into a sears store in Inglewood,
California, he exchanges fire with police on top of the roof of the
store and is subsequently shot in the back by officer Jack O. MacGregor
shortly after 4 a.m. He was sent to Centinela hospital and then
transferred to the General Hospital prison ward.
August 1961/Franklin violates his parole by going on a camping trip with
a fellow parolee to either Alaska or Canada.
November 1, 1961/ franklin is taken into custody for parole violation
and is returned into the Preston Youth Facility.
January 1962/ Franklin is released from the Preston Youth facility.
1962/ Franklin is at Dorothy's home in Gainesville Georgia.
1962/ Floyd is working at the Atlanta airport.
May 1962 / Franklin returns to Hapeville, Georgia and lives near the
Georgia Baptist Children's Home. He is jailed for obtaining a liscense
under false pretenses.
May 20 1962 / Franklin abducts a 4-year-old girl from a
Hapeville,Georgia bowling alley and rapes her.
July 31, 1962/ Franklin is convicted of "child molestation" and is
sentenced to 20 years. He was incarcerated at
Reidsville Prison in Atlanta, Georgia.
November 1, 1962/ Franklin was hospitalized at Milledgeville State
Hospital for psychiatric testing.
March 14th, 1963/ Franklin escapes from Milledgeville Hospital, stole a
car in Milledgeville, and bought a pellet pistol.
March 15, 1963/ Franklin robbed The Citezens and Southern bank of
$6,810.28 in Macon, Georgia. He is arrested the same day.He is held in
Atlanta from April 4th to June 28th, 1963.
March 26, 1963/ Franklin confesses to the bank robbery, but says he did
it to get money to appeal his child molestation conviction.
July 12, 1963/ Franklin pleaded guilty to the bank robbery in Macon.
July 12, 1963/ Franklin was sentenced to 15 years in Chillicothe Federal
reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio for bank robbery.He serves a sentence
there from July 24, 1963- October 26, 1963.
September 27, 1963/ Franklin attempts to escape from Chillicothe by
hotwiring a prison fire-truck and smashing through a fence. He is
apprehended and transferred to Lewisburg, PA.He serves a sentence there
from October 26, 1963- June 5, 1964.
June 1964/ Franklin is transferred to Springfield Missouri Medical
Hospital of Federal Prisoners for evaluation. He is there from June 5th,
1964 to February 6, 1965.
February 1965/ Franklin is transferred to Federal prison in Marion,
Illinois. He recieves his G.E.D.He is at Marion from February 6, 1965 to
February 15, 1968.
February 1968/Franklin is Transferred to Reidsville prison in Georgia to
finish molestation sentence/ Meets David Dial. He is there from Febuary
15, 1968 until he is remanded over to Federal Prison in Atlanta.
July 2 1968/ Della Jewel dies, she is buried in Graceland Cemetery in
Chicago.
November 1971/ Franklin is transferred to Federal Prison in Atlanta,
Georgia for the escape attempt in Chillicothe. This is the birthplace of
The Church Of The New Song.
November 1972/ Franklin is released to a halfway house.
January 19, 1973 Franklin is paroled.
January 27th, 1973/Franklin attempts to kidnap a young woman in Atlanta,
Georgia. His court appearance is scheduled for June 11, 1973.
February 2, 1973/ Franklin is taken into custody for attack on woman in
Atlanta, Georgia. Franklin calls David Dial and he posts 3,000 dollar
bail.
Late February, 1973/ Floyd vanishes. It is later learned that he is
staying with his friend David, David's address at this time was 48
Franklin rd. in Newnan Georgia.
1973/ Floyd is seen at the Weston, Connecticut residence of his sister
Tommye. Her house is burglarized later that night.
1974/ Floyd was seen in Fairfax, Virginia. His sister believes he was
living with his brother Billy and wife Betty.
1974/ Floyd has said in this time, he helped to paint a large intricate
mural on the ceiling of the Salt Lake City Utah Mormon Tabernacle.
1974/ Franklin shows up at Dorothy's residence in Sumpter, SC. Brother
Billy is with him.
1974/ Sister has said that a friend of Franklin's told her that he seen
Franklin, with Sharon in Texas in late 1974.
Late 1975/ Tommye is divorced.
1973-1975 / Franklin may have sent a postcard in this time period from
somewhere named Freedom Village.
1973-1975/ Franklin obtains a little girl (who is now known as Sharon
Marshall) from somewhere. Nobody to this day knows when he got her,
where he got her, or from whom.
1975/ Franklin begins to work in the Oklahoma school system under the
alias Trenton Davis and later in August 1975 enrolls Sharon as his
daughter "Suzanne Davis " at Wilson Elementary school.
1976/ Tommye's Weston Connecticut house is sold and she moves into a
Stamford, Connectut townhouse.
1978 Trenton and Suzanne flee Oklahoma under allegations of child
molestation by the babysitter. She told police Franklin was molesting
his daughter.
1978/ Franklin and Sharon are in Arizona where she is enrolled in a
school called Sevilla or Sevalia.
1979-1981/ The pair are in Louisville Kentucky
????/Sharon is enrolled in Northside High School
May 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Baldwin High School
September 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Riverdale High School
November 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Forrest Park High School in Georgia
Sunday, July 15, 1984/ Sharon meets Jennifer Fisher at a summer
leadership workshop in Rome, Georgia.
1986/ Sharon graduates high school
July 1986/Sharon and Franklin move to Phoenix Arizona.
August 7, 1986/ Della's Fourth Husband dies.
End of 1987 Franklin and Sharon leave Phoenix.
1988/They are in Hillsborough County living in a mobile home park on
28th street near Cockroach Bay and later at the Town and Country Park in
Valrico.
March 21, 1988 Michael Anthony Hughes, Sharon's son is born
May 16,1988/ The Mons Venus is raided, there are dozens of arrests.
1989/ Franklin, Sharon and Michael are living at the Golden Lantern
Trailer park at 7950 Park blvd. near Pinnellas Park. Sharon works at a
club called The Mons Venus where she meets Cheryl Commesso.
First week of April 1989/ Cheryll Commesso disappears.
April 1989/ First week of April 1989/ Franklin murders Cheryl Commesso
and dumps her body along I-275
1989/ A warrant is placed on Franklin for insurance fraud, he is accused
of drilling holes in the bottom of his boat to collect insurance money.
April 7th/ Cheryl Comesso' red corvette is deposited at the St.
Petersburg/ Clearwater airport/
April 15, 1989/ Cheryl Commesso's corvette is found at the airport and
impounded.
May 1989/ Floyd and Sharon leave Tampa.
June 15, 1989 Franklin and Sharon marry in New Orleans, under assumed
aliases.
June 16, 1989 / Floyd's trailor is set on fire in Tampa.
August 1989-April 25/ Sharon is working at a club called Passions in
Tulsa Oklahoma.
April 25 1990/ Sharon is struck from behind by a vehicle, she is in the
hospital for 5 days and then dies from her injuries.
May 4, 1990 Sharon's funeral services are held at Ninde Chapel in Tulsa.
May 17, Michael Hughes is officially declared a ward of the state.
June 20 1990/Franklin is arrested near Augusta Georgia on a 1973
kidnapping charge. Franklin is incarcerated in a
Georgia Federal prison for the kidnapping of Atlanta woman in 1973. Asks
Rebecca Barr to marry him. Asks David Dial to retrieve his belongings
from the trailer where he was arrested on Baron Chapel Road in Augusta,
Georgia.
September 11, 1990, Billy Floyd dies a suspicious death in Barnesville,
Georgia.
December 1990 ? Floyd is transferred from Georgia prison to El Reno
Prison in Oklahoma.
December 14, 1990/ Tommye's ex-husband's daughter is murdered in Dallas
Texas.
1991 / Convicted in Oklahoma on a federal charge of possession of a
firearm after former conviction of a felony.
December 1992/ Court rules conclusively that Floyd is not Michael's
biological father.
March 30, 1993/ Released from Federal Corrections Facility at El Reno
after 33 months. Living in halfway house.
July 4th, 1994/ Attacks a woman at Northwest oklahoma City apartment
complex where he is working as a maintenance man.
August 19, 1994/ Arrested for attack the woman mentioned above. Is
released on bond.
Septmber 12, 1994/ Kidnaps Principal James Davis and Sharon's son
Michael from a Choctaw, Oklahoma elementary school. Ties
principal to a tree and leaves with Michael. Nobody to this day knows
the whereabouts of Michael Hughes.
UNKNOWN DATE/ Commits carjacking in Atlanta and is charged with Five
weapons possession charges, 2 counts of kidnapping and larceny of an
automobile before he is ever even apprehended.
September 21- September 29th / Franklin Floyd is a patient at Grady
Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
October 22, 1994/ Principal James Davis' truck is recovered in Love
Field, Dallas by Love Field Airport, Texas at the Wonderbread Factory
employee parking.
November 10, 1994/ Franklin is arrested at a Kentucky car dealership
where he has been working for 2 days for the kidnapping charges.
March 29 1995/ A body (bones) found along I-275, later it is learned
this is Cheryl Commesso.
March 1995/ Pictures are found concealed above the gas tank of Davis'
truck that depict children (including Sharon in pornographic and
sexually suggestive poses, also found are pictures of a severely beaten
Cheryl comesso, some colored in with blood red to add to their eery "death
effect."
September 28, 2002/ Franklin is convicted of Cheryl Comesso's murder.
2002- Present/ Franklin appealing murder conviction.
August 10, 2006/ Team LGCC vows to find answers.
January 1, 2007/ Franklin's sister Dorothy is attacked in her Florida
apartment by her ex-daughter in law Lynn. Dorothy has stated that
another woman was present when this attack occurred and this other woman
had stated that the attack on her was for Franklin. Lynn is arrested.
There is no way to verify if the other woman was present or not. The
other woman was formerly "The Mystery Photo Woman."
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