Michael Francke Murder

[TheCars1986]

I could've sworn there was a larger thread dedicated to this case, but I couldn't find it through search. I apologize if this has been posted before, but I've been digging into this case recently and came across an article written in 2005. I'll preface it by saying that after rewatching the Francke segment on Amazon, I came away thinking one thing: where is this evidence of a organized hit and coverup? One olive complected guy smoking in the lobby? The crime scene had blood from Francke's car, up the steps, and onto the porch of the Dome Building where his body was found. The conspiracy presented on UM was that men abducted Francke going to his car, and then brought him back to his office to retrieve documents before Francke runs away and then is overtaken and stabbed on the porch. If the conspiracy angle is to be believed, if the killers wanted Francke's documents (speculated to be located in his office in the Dome Building), why would they kill him for running away? They needed him alive at that point. And why would blood evidence be found at Francke's car, the steps, and onto the porch if Francke was making a mad dash to get away from his captors?

Here is the article I found. And here are the highlights:

In an effort to get to the bottom of one of the state's most sensational crimes, The Oregonian conducted the deepest examination of the case since Gable's conviction in 1991. Over five months, reporters reviewed thousands of pages of documents, tracked down dozens of key figures, and spent more than eight hours interviewing Gable.

In the end, the paper found no substance to Kevin Francke's conspiracy theory. Nor does Gable's alibi hold up: The witnesses and evidence he cites fail to account for his whereabouts at the time Francke was stabbed.

An local newspaper would absolutely love to find evidence of a grand conspiracy involving the government, so the fact that they could find "no substance" in the conspiracy claims is telling.

In his interviews with The Oregonian, Gable summed up his view of the conspiracy theory with one word:

"Madness."

Frank Gable was the man convicted of murdering Francke.

But at the time of his death, the 42-year-old Francke was a troubled man.

His second marriage was unraveling. Shortly before the murder, his wife, Bingta, had left, taking their young son. Child support and tuition from Francke's earlier marriage, plus his own spending habits, had stretched their finances. They had to borrow from family and Francke's co-workers to pay for ordinary expenses.

At work, Francke absorbed crushing pressure.

Goldschmidt had high hopes for Francke, a charming and articulate administrator from a new generation in prison management. Corrections leaders typically came from the ranks of wardens and superintendents. Francke was a University of Virginia law school graduate, former assistant attorney general and judge.

But not long after Francke's arrival, his blunders got his boss's attention.

Memos and correspondence from Goldschmidt's archives show that Francke was often out of step with the governor's agenda. He alienated lawmakers by making spending decisions without their OK. Though Francke loved the public spotlight, he seemed to have a tin ear for politics.

Lawmakers trusted by Goldschmidt quietly complained, and he feared Francke was becoming a liability. A month before the murder, Goldschmidt sent his prisons chief a scathing two-page memo.

"There's no room for more speeches about 'We don't have a crime problem,' or 'Prisons won't help,' " Goldschmidt wrote. Blasting Francke's management style, he added: "This is more of a warning than anything else. . . . I don't want every issue or decision to be dumped on me."

In the weeks before his death, Francke was on the phone regularly with Goldschmidt's office as he prepared for an upcoming presentation to lawmakers. "Corrections told to watch budget" was the top story on a copy of The (Salem) Statesman-Journal found in his car.

The typical tenure for corrections administrators was short, and Francke was looking ahead. On Jan. 3, 1989, he had fired off his resume to a New Mexico firm, according to a review of his computer files.

He planned to be in Oregon only one more year.

Francke's personal life was completely omitted from the UM segment. It's also interesting to note that Francke apparently was ruffling feathers with the Governor of Oregon. This seems to be one reason why people buy into the conspiracy angle. However, Francke had submitted his resume roughly 2 weeks before he was murdered. He wasn't staying long. Why bother killing the guy if he was going to be gone within months? Let him go and carry on business as usual.

Sometime in the year before his brother's death, [Kevin] Francke contends, Michael Francke told him he had uncovered an "organized criminal element" in the prison system. He planned to shake up his staff. He didn't mention names.

At the time, Kevin Francke didn't find the comment remarkable, he told The Oregonian. Michael Francke never mentioned it again. Later, after the murder, Francke cited the conversation to suggest that his brother was killed by someone in state government.

An examination of media accounts and police interviews over the years shows that Francke has shifted accounts of this crucial conversation, however, casting doubt on its reliability.

Francke has variously placed it the Friday before the murder, less than a month before his brother's death and around Thanksgiving. His former-wife, now deceased, told a reporter in 1990 that the conversation never took place.

Recently, Francke told The Oregonian he cannot recall when the conversation happened. And he says it might not have been a phone call: His brother may have mentioned the "organized criminal element" during a visit to Kevin's home in Florida the summer before he died.

His ex-wife says the conversation never happened. Interesting.

Last year, Francke also added a new detail to the conversation by naming the supposed mastermind behind his brother's murder: Scott McAlister, a former assistant attorney general who had once represented the Corrections Department.

In one of Stanford's Tribune columns last August, Kevin Francke said his brother was troubled by McAlister.

"It's him or me," Kevin said his brother told him.

But if the conversation took place in the weeks before the murder -- as Kevin Francke has said -- it's unlikely Michael Francke would have been worried about McAlister.

In early December, McAlister announced that he was resigning. He was headed to Utah to take a new job with that state's prison system.

So McAlister resigned a month prior to Francke's murder and got another job out of state...and still wanted to murder him?

In Kevin Francke's conspiracy plot, McAlister holds center stage.

Francke depicts him as a corrupt bureaucrat who was cozy with inmates and benefited from some kind of black-market prison trade.

His brother threatened to halt McAlister's dealings, Francke believes, so McAlister turned to underworld associates, including Timothy Natividad, a 24-year-old Salem meth dealer with a violent streak.

The murder plot, Francke maintains, called for Natividad and two other men to force the prison chief into his car and drive off, kill him and make it appear like suicide.

Something went wrong, Francke says, and Natividad ended up sneaking behind Francke as he walked to his car, spinning him around and thrusting the knife into his chest.

Timothy Natividad is the man that Gable supporters have said is the real killer. Yes because when I picture someone wanting to stage a suicide, I see them stabbing them in the heart the moment they encounter them.

Kevin Francke has never produced credible evidence to support this version of events. Nor can he explain why someone would kill his brother in a state parking lot when he presented a far easier target at his rural Marion County home, where he lived alone.

Another very salient point.

In August of 1990, [Elizabeth] Godlove [Natividad's girlfriend at the time] told Gable's defense team that Natividad came home in a panic during the early morning hours "on or about" the night of the murder. She noticed a wound on his leg and a gash on his head.

A day or two later, Natividad told her he'd killed a man.

But when Godlove relayed the story to police in September 1990, she said she couldn't be certain the night Natividad arrived home with wounds was the same night Francke was stabbed.

"Tim never told her who he killed or where it happened," Oregon State Police Detective Loren Glover wrote in his report.

Police ran down leads on Natividad, testing his knives and clothing. But they found no link to the murder.

Today, the theory that Natividad was the murderer remains part of Gable's legal appeal.

Nonetheless, Gable told The Oregonian that he doesn't think Natividad was involved.

"I just don't see him (McAlister) going and hiring some low-level dope fiend or drug addict to go do a murder," Gable said. "It don't make no sense."

One would think that if Natividad was contracted to murder a high ranking official in the Oregon government, he would've at least mentioned that to his girlfriend at the time.

Natividad's own story will never be known -- Godlove shot and killed him two weeks after Francke's death. A jury acquitted her that spring after she claimed Natividad had been abusing her for years and had held a gun to her head the day she killed him.

Godlove and Kevin Francke married in 1994.

Anyone wonder why Francke's brother is implicating Natividad now? He's married to the woman whom Natividad used to allegedly abuse!

To Francke, the motives of Natividad and McAlister are obvious.

With Michael Francke gone, Natividad would have had an easy time peddling drugs in prison. And McAlister had two reasons to kill his brother, Francke speculates.

One was professional -- he wanted Francke's job. The second was malice -- McAlister sought revenge for something that happened on a vacation he and Francke had taken the previous March.

In 1988, Michael Francke told his brother he was going skiing near Reno, Nev., after a conference. Kevin Francke maintains his brother never hit the slopes and instead booked a flight home the next morning. Francke recalls that the last-minute change cost his brother an extra $218.

When he asked what happened, his brother didn't answer. Later, Kevin Francke learned that McAlister was on the trip. Something "horribly horrendous" in Reno triggered McAlister's plan to kill his brother, Francke believes.

Records cast doubt on the scenario, however.

Michael Francke's carefully documented travel schedule from 1988 shows he didn't leave Oregon for work in March. Instead, the records say he went to Nevada in January and met with McAlister in Reno.

Far from arranging a hasty retreat, Francke canceled his return flight and drove 10 hours from Reno to Salem.

McAlister shared the ride with him.

Anyone else starting to see the conspiracy theory crumbling?

In August 1989, McAlister passed a polygraph exam about Francke's murder. Police records show he answered no when asked if he killed Francke, if he knew the killer's identity and whether he conspired to have Francke killed.

Polygraphs are inadmissible in court, but I find this, coupled with everything else, to be clear that McAlister had NOTHING to do with any conspiracy to murder Francke.

When Dennis O'Donnell, retired deputy superintendent of the Oregon State Police, was assigned to oversee the Francke case, one of the first things he did was call the columnist [Phil Stanford, who cowrote the screenplay of the movie based on the case].

Stanford laid out what to O'Donnell sounded like a bewildering scheme that involved inmates being let out on weekends to go to Arizona, where they would buy drugs. They would return to prison and pay kickbacks to guards, who would launder the cash through their retirement accounts.

"When I walked out of there, my eyes were crossed it was so screwy," O'Donnell told The Oregonian. Still, whenever Stanford uncovered new information, O'Donnell spent evenings trying to chase it down.

Stanford's leads went nowhere, O'Donnell says.

Another MacDonald-esque rabbit hole investigation it seems.

Soon after, Goldschmidt appointed John Warden, a retired Oregon appellate judge, to lead an independent review. The three-month inquiry and follow-up investigations found no connection between Francke's murder and prison corruption.

Likewise, the Oregonian looked for any credible evidence suggesting Michael Francke had confided to his colleagues about discovering corruption in his agency and found none.

The Governor of Oregon ordered an independent review of the case and found nothing. One could argue that this was another part of the elaborate cover up. But why would a local newspaper also corroborate this cover up? There was no evidence that Francke had ever told any of his coworkers anything that would indicate that someone wanted him dead. Are they involved in the cover up as well?

But those assertions ignore incriminating remarks that Gable made to police and to four other trial witnesses, including Gable's former wife, each of whom told The Oregonian they stand by their accounts.

The ex-wife, Janyne Vierra, described to The Oregonian a tearful confession she says Gable made three or four months after the murder. During an argument, Gable told his wife she didn't understand the pressure he was under.

"I stuck the guy," Gable said, sobbing.

"What guy?" she asked.

"The guy at the hospital," Gable answered. Francke's office was on the state hospital grounds, where Vierra worked as a nurse at the time.

It wasn't just addicts and ex-cons who Gable was confessing to. He confessed to his wife at the time as well.

I think this other article sums up the murder perfectly:

Michael Francke was stabbed to death by Frank Gable, a low-level thief, thug and drug dealer, after Francke happened to stumble upon him breaking into his car.

The true Gable case was simply too mundane for the press to accept at face value in 1989.

The truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction.

[Todd Mueller]

Wow, TheCars1986! That's some post you put together. How many weeks did that take you?

Interesting in that the UM piece showed a lot of "evidence" (or theory) of a murder conspiracy, or at least a murder with motive. From what you found, that is unlikely.

Looks like another win for Occam's Razor. Great job, Cars!

[SertumAEnigmA]

This is a case that always interested me mostly due to the lack of independent information. The problem with this case and it's reporting is that separate media sources have come to different conclusions. So it really boils down to, "who do you want to believe?"

Two media sources attacked The Oregonian for it's reporting on the Michael Francke case.

One was the
Portland Tribune

One of their biggest problems with The Oregonian's reporting was their complete failure and total disregard to disclose the fact that the entire investigative file which included the The Warden Commission's findings into Francke's death is shielded from public view or has been destroyed.

They also failed to report that The Warden Commission found “There are reasonable grounds to believe that some officials of the Department of Corrections are involved in significant illegal activities or other wrongdoing. A number of identified department employees who had admitted to committing crimes during an early corruptions investigation still were working there in 1989

While the rest of the article brings up interesting points, it appears that The Oregonian took some liberty here and basically claimed that anyone looking into his death were conspiracy theorists.

I don't think that is really the case here. I personally believe that Gable killed him. Considering his girlfriend at the time worked there, he went there to pick her up or simply knew she worked with some high profile individuals, then decided to break into cars and got caught.

It is apparent that a cover up did occur though. I do believe that Francke had uncovered extensive corruption, he shook things up and quickly realized that it is and would remain business as usual. Sadly for him, his boss was a politician and politicians have to take care of things and people a certain way.

His death was a major blow to everyone as it risked publicly exposing the corruption. So, the state moved to divert attention onto the crime itself and spin his death into a conspiracy theory, when in reality corruption was a problem. So what they really did was basically attempt to discredit anyone looking into the investigation as a "kook conspiracy theorist".

This is why it is important that any and all records that involve public officials and public institutions be readily available once investigations are complete. I certainly have no problem with certain agencies protecting certain informants, whistle-blowers and some methods in how information was obtained, but there is absolutely no reason that thousands of documents involving a public official and a public institution are "exempt from public disclosure".

"Exempt from public exposure" simply means high paid bureaucrats and politicians are at risk of spending substantial time in prison, therefore, it is in our best interest that we can't see them.

It's for our safety. All of ours.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by SertumAEnigmA

One was the
Portland Tribune

Let's break down their points one by one:

Thousands of documents about the investigation into the murder and allegations of corruption in the Corrections Department have never been released to the public. They include reports written by the Oregon State Police and a commission appointed by former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt to investigate the allegations. Many of the reports were transferred to the office of the Corrections ombudsman, where they are exempt from public disclosure.

The documents include most of the investigative reports produced by the Goldschmidt-appointed commission, which was chaired by retired Oregon Appeals Judge John Warden. According to an inventory of the ombudsman records obtained by the Portland Tribune, they include investigative reports, investigative notes, audiotapes and two files labeled “Francke investigation.”

So the records have never been released publicly. The records could indicate a massive cover up, or it could be a simple conclusion that Gable was breaking into Francke's car and murdered him when he got caught. I don't see the significance of this point, or why the Oregonian would need to bring this up in its story.

The Warden Commission found that some Corrections employees were engaged in criminal activities at the time of Francke’s death, according to the final report that was released to the public. Without naming names, it said, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that some officials of the Department of Corrections are involved in significant illegal activities or other wrongdoing.” The report also said that a number of identified department employees who had admitted to committing crimes during an early corruptions investigation still were working there in 1989.

Although the report concluded there was no “organized, sinister conspiracy” among the staff to commit illegal acts, “what does appear to exist is an atmosphere, wherein those who seek personal gain of property, power, or authority, can pursue those ends with little difficulty.”

This is precisely the reason that Francke was brought in to Oregon...to clean up the system. Why would the government then want to kill the guy for uncovering what they brought him in for?! Plus there is no "organized conspiracy". One could make the suggestion that a couple of corrections personnel got together to off Francke, but that crumbles considering the evidence and confessions against Gable.

Oregon State Police reports indicate that Francke was afraid for his life when he was killed. Investigators who visited Francke’s rural home after his body was found discovered a loaded handgun and shotgun in his bedroom. They also found numerous, empty shotgun shells in his backyard, suggesting that he had been practicing with it. During the trial, Corrections Department Fiscal Administrator David Lee Caulley testified that before he died, Francke told him he had a “sore shoulder” from shooting the shotgun.

This is evidence that Francke owned guns and practiced shooting them. Totally irrelevant.

Former Corrections Ombudsman Darryl Larson testified to the Oregon Legislature that drug trafficking was a substantial problem in the prisons a little more than a year after Francke was killed. During his March 7, 1990, testimony, Larson specifically mentioned what he called the corrosive influence of prison drug trafficking on Corrections officials.

Again, what is the significance of this with regards to Francke's murder?

No one except the murderer or murderers knows when Francke was killed. The autopsy could not determine the time of death, in part because the temperature of the body was not taken. The autopsy report, written by Dr. Larry Lewman, the state medical examiner at the time, only said, “The body was rigid and the temperature had decreased.”

This point has no relevance to the claims of any conspiracy theory or even the official version.

A mystery man seen in the Corrections headquarters hours after the door was locked on the night Francke was killed has never been identified. His identity is still unknown, despite the fact that a composite drawing was released to the media and distributed to law enforcement agencies throughout the state. He was described as a nice-looking, olive-skinned man in his late 20s or early 30s a description that fits Timothy Natividad, a Salem criminal who told several people before Francke died that he wanted to kill a Corrections official, according to state police reports. Natividad was killed in a domestic dispute before Gable was charged with the crime.

Natividad was mentioned and pretty much ruled out completely by every investigating agency. It's interesting to note that Natividad was killed 2 weeks after Francke's murder. Natividad becomes the perfect "boogeyman" for Gable supporters. He's dead, so he cannot dispute the claims aimed against him.

A veteran Oregon Department of Justice investigator who worked on the case thought the wrong man was convicted. Randy Martinak testified under oath during an appeal hearing that Gable was the only person he ever thought had been wrongly charged with a crime.

He also says, "At the conclusion of that, I was told that a crew of attorneys from the Department of Justice had already reviewed the case with the Marion County DA’s office and that they felt there was evidence enough to convict Mr. Gable, and that I should just forget about it and keep my mouth shut." One investigator vs. the department of justice.

Police investigators were never able to determine why Francke’s car alarm did not go off when Gable allegedly broke into it. Francke’s 1987 Pontiac Bonneville was equipped with an aftermarket alarm that had been installed at a Salem car stereo and security business. After the murder, investigators questioned business employees and their friends to determine if anyone had leaked the security code to anyone. The investigation reached a dead end.

Instead of wondering if anyone had leaked the security code to someone, wouldn't the first natural reaction be that Francke simply forgot to turn the alarm on his car that day? Or that at some point he disarmed it and forgot to turn it back on? There are several possibilities for this little odd occurrence, most of them pretty mundane.

Many of the witnesses who testified against Gable at his trial told different stories to investigators during their early interviews. The first person to say Gable killed Francke, a runaway named Jodie Swearingen, eventually recanted her story and testified for the defense. Other witnesses initially denied knowing anything about the killing.

This was brought up in the Oregonian article.

Whether Gable got a fair trial is an issue yet to be resolved. His current lawyer, David Celech, has appealed the case to the Oregon Court of Appeals, arguing that Gable’s trial counsel was ineffective. Celech argues that Gable’s constitutional right to a fair trial was violated because his original lawyers failed to introduce evidence that other people could have killed Francke, failed to conduct DNA testing on a hair found on Francke’s body and prevented him from testifying in his own defense.

The Oregonian article was a piece about Gable being the guilty party, not whether or not he received a fair trial.

ETA: The "Olive complected guy" looks an awful lot like Gable with a mustache...but that's just my impression.

[James T]

Billy Jack Haynes had some interesting things to say about it a decade or so ago, but it is hard to believe much of what he says-although he certainly was involved in criminal activity in later years & indeed in his early years, it is too obscene with all the swearing to post here though.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by James T

Billy Jack Haynes had some interesting things to say about it a decade or so ago, but it is hard to believe much of what he says-although he certainly was involved in criminal activity in later years & indeed in his early years, it is too obscene with all the swearing to post here though.

Loved that guy back in the 80's. His career kind of went nowhere after he left the WWE.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by James T

Billy Jack Haynes had some interesting things to say about it a decade or so ago, but it is hard to believe much of what he says-although he certainly was involved in criminal activity in later years & indeed in his early years, it is too obscene with all the swearing to post here though.

Ha! Didn't know that Billy Jack had some opinions on this case. Of course, this is the same guy who says the reason Chris Benoit killed his family was because he found out Vince McMahon was his son's real biological father, so I don't take anything he says seriously.

As for the Francke case, I also recently re-watched this segment and found its structure to be a bit odd. It's interesting how UM released it only a few months before Gable actually went to trial. It's almost like this was put together as a quasi-final appeal segment except that Gable had not actually been convicted of the crime yet and we learned almost nothing about him. But you bring up a lot of a valid points to debunk the conspiracy theory UM presented.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by RobinW

Ha! Didn't know that Billy Jack had some opinions on this case. Of course, this is the same guy who says the reason Chris Benoit killed his family was because he found out Vince McMahon was his son's real biological father, so I don't take anything he says seriously.

Really? So those brain scans showing him with the brain of an 85-year old Alzheimer's patient and severe CTE meant nothing to the guy?


OT: I am often amused at how often our threads contain pro-wrestling trivia. I'm not saying anyone needs to stop, but I just find it funny.

[TheCars1986]

Billy Jack Haynes alleges to have been hired with others to beat up Francke under the pretense that Francke was a pedophile. He claims that Natividad took it too far and killed him.

[James T]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Billy Jack Haynes alleges to have been hired with others to beat up Francke under the pretense that Francke was a pedophile. He claims that Natividad took it too far and killed him.

It could be legit-Haynes had quit WWF in 1988 & set up in opposition to Don Owne but his company went bust fast. He likely would have been looking for work & he was involved in crime before he got into wrestling. In the 1990's he got a severe kicking from some guys supposedly because he was ripping off drug traffickers he was working for. Incredibly shady & volatile character.

[James T]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

Really? So those brain scans showing him with the brain of an 85-year old Alzheimer's patient and severe CTE meant nothing to the guy?


OT: I am often amused at how often our threads contain pro-wrestling trivia. I'm not saying anyone needs to stop, but I just find it funny.

The wrestling business is stranger than Unsolved Mysteries.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Billy Jack Haynes alleges to have been hired with others to beat up Francke under the pretense that Francke was a pedophile. He claims that Natividad took it too far and killed him.

Oh wow, I just looked up all those posts with the E-mails from Haynes on the "Free Frank Gable" website and they're... quite something. I know the posts are several years old, but what a way for Gable's supporters and the conspiracy theorists to kill their credibility.

[James T]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7_DbBmtTMg

[BlueGalexy]

Hey OP, thank you so much for the obvious time and care you took in starting this thread. This case has always fascinated me as I've been a born and bred Oregonian my whole life. I'm actually embarrassed to say that I've never seen The Oregonian report of the Francke case, which is odd to me considering I've been reading that paper for most of my life. I'll have to check it out.
Truth be told, I'm one of those people that love think zebras when I hear hoof beats, and I'll admit that for a long time I was tempted by the grand, shadowy conspiracy theory attached to this case, but your posts actually make a lot of sense to me. I find it more likely all the time that the Francke case was sadly a wrong time/wrong place kind of thing, and the delightfully tempting conspiracy theory surrounding it makes for great TV...and not much else.
Much as I'm a huge fan of UM and always will be, I consider the Francke case to be a classic example of how easy it is to be distracted by creative editing, when in reality, the truth of a case may be something else entirely.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by BlueGalexy

Much as I'm a huge fan of UM and always will be, I consider the Francke case to be a classic example of how easy it is to be distracted by creative editing, when in reality, the truth of a case may be something else entirely.

I am with you 100% on this. I used to accept the UM segments at face value. It wasn't until I dug deeper (thanks to the internet) that showed me how many of them were skewed to make the viewer believe a certain way through selective editing, leaving information out, etc.