John Franklin, Sr., 35
Michelle Franklin, 22
Eddyville, IA
Wapello County
January 3, 1978
John Franklin, Sr., 35, a central Iowa factory worker, and his 22-year-old wife Michelle were shot to death in their Eddyville, Iowa, home some time between 10 p.m. and midnight on Tuesday, January 3, 1978, in what officials called a double homicide.
Michelle’s mother, Willa Mae Brower, discovered the bodies about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 4, in the Franklin’s small frame house and alerted local authorities.
Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent Craig Beek said the couple apparently were shot to death during the night but that there were no signs of a struggle.
Courtesy photo Cedar Rapids GazetteJohn Franklin’s son by a previous marriage, John Franklin, Jr., 14, was picked up in Oskaloosa by law officers about 1 a.m. the morning after the murders. The Mahaska County sheriff said young Franklin was being held “purely as a runaway,” and at the time refused to comment whether the boy was linked to the killings.
John Franklin Jr. lived with his father — an employee of Rolscreen Company in Pella — and stepmother. His mother lived in Des Moines.
On Monday, March 6, 1978, John Franklin Jr. was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. A court ruled he would be tried as an adult, and on March 16 he was arraigned in Wapello County District Court in Ottumwa, Iowa, in connection with the shootings.
In an evidence hearing on August 28, 1978, BCI agent Ron Mower testified that Franklin admitted killing his father and stepmother, and then beating his father’s body with a stick.
The trial was held in Washington County District Court on a change of venue and began March 13, 1979.
Defense attorney Alfredo Parrish told the six-men six-women jurors that a neighbor “whose bedroom is adjacent to the Franklin house, awoke at 3 a.m. and heard what he thought were three shots — maybe more.”
Prosecutor Sam Erhardt, the Wapello County Attorney at the time of the shootings, said he would show evidence that Franklin stated to an acquaintance in Eddyville that he was going to kill his father and kill his parents. “And while he was held [at the State Training School for Boys] at Eldora, he stated on more than one occasion that he had shot his father and stepmother,” Erhardt said.
Erhardt said Michelle Franklin was shot in the living room of the Franklin home when she returned from work in Ottumwa about 4 p.m. on January 3. Her body was dragged into a bedroom, where John Franklin, Sr. also was killed when he arrived home about 5 p.m., Erhardt said.
A jury acquitted John Franklin, Jr., 16, in both murders.
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