Joseph Paul Franklin was a rare racially-motivated serial killer. Franklin drifted city-to-city and state-to-state in search of new hunting grounds in a quest to "cleanse the world", as he put it.

Franklin killed at random, possibly beginning in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977 when he shot Alphone Manning and his white friend Toni Schwenn. In 1979 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, he killed another racially mixed couple. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the next year, Franklin shot and killed two black men in seperate incidents. Though brought in for questioning on the Indianapolis and Oklahoma murders, he was never charged because of lack of evidence.

On June 8, 1980, Franklin gunned down Darrell Lane, 13, and Dante Brown, 14, two cousins on their way to a neighborhood store in Cincinatti, Ohio.

His killing spree was finally ended in 1980 when he was arrested in Florida for the Salt Lake City, Utah killing of two black men the racist had spotted jogging with white women.

In total, Franklin has been tenuously linked to roughly 20 killings and numerous other crimes including bank robbery and possibly bombings.

He has confessed to the shooting of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine's Larry Flint. He has also admitted guilt in a 1980 murder of two hitch-hikers in West Virginia, a crime for which another man has been convicted and is serving two life sentences.

Franklin has garnered multiple life sentences himself and is currently incarcerated on Missouri's death row for the murder of a Jewish man outside a synagogue.

Trail of Violence

1977

• July 25: Bombing. No injuries. Rockville, Md. Admits.
• July 29: Bombing. No injuries. Chattanooga, Tenn. Convicted.
• Aug. 7: Two killings. Madison, Wis. Convicted.
• Oct. 7: One killing, two injuries. St. Louis suburb. Trial pending.

1978

• March 6: Two injuries. Lawrenceville, Ga. Admits, trial pending.
• July 29: One killing, one injury. Chattanooga suburb. Admits, trial pending.

1979

• March 25: One killing. Jackson, Miss. Admits, no charges.
• July 29: One killing. Chattanooga suburb.
• Aug. 8: One killing. Falls Church, Va.
• Oct. 1: Two killings. Oklahoma City. Charges dropped.

1980

• Jan. 12: One killing. Indianapolis.
• Jan. 14: Two killings. Indianapolis. Admits after charges dropped.
• April 23: Two injuries. Indianapolis. Admits.
• May 3: One killing. Tomah, Wis.
• May 29: One injury. Fort Wayne, Ind. Admits after jury acquits him.
• June 6: Two killings. Cincinnati.
• June 15: Two killings. Johnstown, Pa.
• Aug. 20: Two killings. Salt Lake City, Utah. Convicted

Joseph Franklin (1977-1981) was a 37-year old former Klansman and neo-Nazi from Madison, Wisconsin who believed that interracial couples were a sin against God. He also believed that the criminal justice system was too lenient on blacks, and he once targeted a judge he thought was too lenient.

He is thought to have bombed a synagogue in Chattanooga and was also a suspect in the shooting of Larry Flynt presumably because interracial couples were featured in Hustler magazine.

He was an excellent sniper, and in his travels around the country, he shot 15 people, mostly couples consisting of a black man and a white woman. His favorite sniping post was the rooftop of shopping malls, but he eventually began shooting mixed-race jogging couples from any rooftop or perch. He evaded prosecution several times because he was so mobile and the only evidence authorities had on him was that he was in town when the shootings happened.

A jury in Utah eventually sentenced him in 1981 to four life terms, and other states, such as Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida followed suit in 1986 or considered their cases closed.

Joseph Paul Franklin

Born James Clayton Vaughn, Jr., in Mobile Alablama, Franklin was the eldest son of an alcoholic drifter who often abandoned his family for months or years at a stretch. Siblings remember that James Vaughn, Sr., would celebrate infrequent homecomings by beating his children, with James, Jr., absorbing the worst punishment. As a youth, Franklin went in for food fads and fringe religions, dropping out of high school after an accident left him with severely impaired eyesight.

The injury was a two-edged sword, exempting Franklin from military conscription, and he married in 1968, at an age when many young men were sweating out the draft lottery, fearful of the war in Vietnam. Soon after their wedding, Franklin's bride noted a change in his personality "like night and day." He began to beat her, emulating the father he hated, and on other occasions she would find him inexplicably weeping. Around the same time, their all-white neighborhood was racially integrated, and Franklin began to veer hard right, into the realm of pathological bigotry.

The next few years were marked by ugly racial incidents and sporadic arrests for carrying concealed weapons. Franklin was increasingly drawn to the American Nazi Party, lapsing into the segregationist movement full-time after mother'shis death, in 1972. Moving to Atlanta, he joined the neo-fascist National States Rights Party, simultaneously holding membership in the local Ku Klux Klan. Franklin began insulting interracial couples in public, and on Labor Day 1976, he trailed one such couple to a dead-end street in Atlanta, spraying them with chemical Mace.

Around this time, Franklin legally changed his name, shedding the last links with his "normal" life. Federal prosecutors allege -- and jurors have agreed -- that he spent the years 1977 to 1980 wandering across the South and Midwest, employing 18 pseudonyms, changing cars and weapons frequently, dying his hair so often that it came close to falling out. Along the way, he killed some thirteen persons in a frenzied, one-man war against minorities.

According to the FBI, Franklin launched his campaign in the summer of 1977, bombing a Chattanooga synagogue on July 29. Nine days later, investigators say, he shot and killed Alphonse Manning and Toni Schwenn, an interracial couple, in Madison, Wisconsin. On October 8, Gerald Gordon was killed by sniper fire as he left a bar mitzvah in the St. Louis suburb of Richmond Heights.

Harold McIver, the black manager of a fast-food restaurant in Doraville, Georgia, was working the night shift when a sniper took his life on July 22, 1979. Three months later, in Oklahoma City, another interracial couple came under attack from the itinerant gunman. Jesse Taylor was hit three times with a high-powered rifle before he expired; a single round through the chest killed Marian Bresette as she ran to the aide of her common-law husband. 

Franklin struck twice in Indianapolis during January 1980, killing black men with long-distance rifle fire in two separate attacks. On May 3, he allegedly killed a young white woman, Rebecca Bergstrom, dumping her body near Tomah, in central Wisconsin. On June 8 he surfaced in Cincinnati, bagging cousins Darrell Lane and Dante Brown from his sniper's perch on a nearby railroad trestle. A week later, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Franklin shotgunned a black couple -- Arthur Smothers and Kathleen Mikula -- as they crossed a downtown bridge. On August 20, joggers Ted Fields and David Martin were cut down by rifle fire in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Arrested in Kentucky on September 25, 1980 (and recaptured a month later, after escaping to Florida), Franklin faced a marathon series of state and federal trials, with mixed results. 

In 1982, he was acquitted of federal civil rights charges in the May 1980 shooting that left civil rights leader Vernon Jordan critically injured in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Utah juries found him guilty of murder and civil rights violations; Franklin was serving life on those counts in 1983 when he confessed the 1978 sniping that crippled Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flint in Gwinnett County, Georgia. (Franklin was indicted for that crime but never tried, since he already faced stiffer penalties in other states.)

More convictions followed: for the Chattanooga bombing; for the double murder in Wisconsin, described by prosecutors as "the closest thing to killing for sport"; for the murder of Gerald Gordon, killed leaving a Clayton, Missouri synagogue in 1977 (his first death sentence); for the June 1980 double murder in Cincinnati; for the 1978 murder of William Tatum, shot while talking to a white woman outside a Chattanooga restaurant.

Other crimes confessed by Franklin without further convictions include the 1980 murder of teenager Nancy Santomero at a peace retreat in West Virginia; the 1980 murders of an interracial couple in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the 1980 murders of an interracial couplein Johnstown, Ohio; an the separate 1979 murders of a white woman and a black man in Decatur, Georgia. Overall, investigators believe Franklin is responsible for at least 18 murders and five nonfatal shootings in 11 states, plus two bombings and 16 bank robberies.

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans

Franklin gets two more life sentences

By Aldina Vazao - CourtTV.com

October 22, 1999

Judge Ralph Winkler sentenced serial killer and alleged white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin to two consecutive life sentences for the 1980 Cincinnati murder of two black teenagers. Franklin said he would appeal within 30 days.

Compiled from a chronology prepared by the Cincinnati Police Department

August 7, 1977 Madison, Wisconsin

Shot and killed a male black and a female white after an altercation in a shopping mall parking lot. Both shot with a handgun.

Franklin admitted to these homicides February 17, 1984. He was tried, found guilty and given two life sentences in 1985.
 

October 8, 1977 Richmond Heights, Missouri

Shot and killed a male white and wounded two others as they were leaving a Jewish synagogue.

Shooting was with a 30.06 Remington rifle which was left at the scene.

The shots were fired from a grassy area at the top of the synagogue parking lot. Sniper type shooting.

Franklin admitted this offense and was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
 

March 6, 1978 Gwinette County, Georgia

Shot and wounded Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reaves. Shooting was sniper style. Shot with a .44 caliber rifle. Flynt was shot twice and Reaves once, both survived.

Franklin was indicted but never tried.

Franklin has since admitted to these shootings.
 

July 29, 1978 Chattanooga, Tennessee

Shot and killed a male black and wounded a female white companion. Shooting was with a 12 gauge pump shotgun.

Shooting occurred in a Pizza Hut parking lot. Both victims were shot once with a 12 gauge pump shotgun. The shooting was sniper style from tall grass off the parking lot.

Franklin admitted this offense after contacting investigators from jail and confessed. He was indicted and pled guilty on the eve of his trial to murder.

Franklin was sentenced to two life sentences, one for the murder and one for an unrelated armed robbery offence that occurred in 1977.
 

July 12, 1979 Doraville, Georgia

Shot and killed a male black manager of Taco Bell. Shooting was sniper style from an area off the rear parking lot.

Weapon used was a 30.30 savage rifle. Victim shot twice.

Franklin admitted this offense to Assistant District Attorney on March 26, 1998.

Franklin has been indicted for this murder, but has not been tried.
 

December 5, 1979 Dekalb County, Georgia

Shot and killed a 15 year old female white prostitute Mercedes Master.

Shot with a shotgun at close range.

Franklin picked this victim up hitchhiking, and actually lived with her for sometime before the murder.

Franklin has admitted this offense to Assistant District Attorney on March 26, 1998.

Franklin has been indicted for murder, but has not been tried.
 

August 18, 1979 Falls Church, Virginia

Shot and killed a 27 year old male black who was seated in a Burger King restaurant.

Sniper type shooting. Victim shot with a 30.30 rifle.

Detective met with Franklin at his request on March 10, 1997.

Franklin confessed to this murder on videotape.
 

October 21, 1979 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Shot and killed a male black and a female white in a shopping center parking lot.

Shooting was sniper style from a distance of 100 yards away. The male subject was struck 3 times and the female subject once. Five shots were fired and four took affect.

The weapon used was 30.06 rifle.

Franklin has been indicted for these murders, but Oklahoma has not sought to extradite him for trial.
 

January 11, 1980 Indianapolis, Indiana

Shot and killed a male black 19 years old who was standing in front of a Church’s Fried Chicken window.

One shot was fired sniper style, striking the victim once in the chest, the shot was fired from a distance of approximately 150 yards away.

The weapon used was a 30 caliber rifle.

Franklin has admitted to this offense and has been indicted, but Indiana has not sought to extradite him for trial.
 

January 16, 1980 Indianapolis, Indiana

Shot and killed a male black standing in front of a fast food convenient store with his father.

Sniper type shooting one shot to the chest of the victim.

Weapon used was the same weapon used in the January 11^th shooting a .30 caliber rifle.

Shot was fired from a distance of approximately 150 yards through a plate glass window.

Franklin has been indicted for two counts of aggravated murder and is awaiting trial.
 

June 15, 1980 Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Shot and killed a male black and a female white walking down the street.

Sniper type shooting from a wooded area near a railroad overpass.

Male victim shot once the female was shot twice with .35 caliber rifle.

Franklin was seen driving a dark green Chevy Nova at the time of the shootings.

Franklin has admitted these homicides on April 13, 1997 and has been indicted, but the state of Pennsylvania will not extradite him.
 

June 25, 1980 Pocahontas County, West Virginia

Picked up two female white hitchhikers and drove to a wooded area of a park where he shot and killed them.

Murders are known as "the Rainbow Murders" locally.

Weapon used was a .44 caliber handgun.

Franklin confessed to these murders on March 1, 1984.

However there was another person charged with these offenses, and subsequently convicted (Jacob Beard).
 

August 20, 1980 Salt Lake City, Utah

Shot and killed two male black joggers as they were leaving a park with two female whites.

Both victims were shot multiple times, seven shots total fired.

Sniper type shooting from a distance of approximately 40 yards.

Weapon used was a 30.30 Marlin lever action rifle

Franklin’s car was observed leaving the scene a 1975 brown over brown Chevy Camaro KY license BDC678.

Franklin was charged indicted and tried both by the state on murder charges and federally on civil rights violations.

He was convicted and received two life sentences. Franklin has since admitted to these offenses on at least two occasions.

State of Missouri v. Joseph P. Franklin

969 S.W.2d 743 (Mo.banc 1998)

Case Facts:  In September of 1977, believing that Jews were "enemies of the white race," Franklin drove to Dallas, Texas after robbing a bank in Little Rock, Arkansas. In Dallas, Franklin bought a 30-06 rifle with a telescopic sight. He then drove to St. Louis, Missouri, checked into a hotel, scouted the city for synagogues, and finally chose Brith Shalom Kneseth Israel Congregation in Richmond Heights.

To prepare for the crime, Franklin bought some ten-inch nails, a guitar case and a bicycle. He tested the bicycle to assure himself that is could be used to enable him to leave the scene of the crime. He drove the nails into a telephone pole to serve as a rifle rest. Later, he ground the serial number off the rifle. He then cleaned the rifle, ammunition and guitar case of any fingerprints and, thereafter, he used gloves to handle the equipment. Lastly, he put the rifle into the guitar case and hid them both in some bushes near the synagogue.