JOSEPH PAUL FRANKLIN - WHITE SUPREMACIST SERIAL KILLER

He was born James Clayton Vaughn in Mobile, Alabama, to a poor family. He was the second of four children in a volatile impoverished home. As a child Franklin, who felt different from other children, turned to reading books, mostly fairy tales, as an escape from the domestic violence in the home. His sister has described the home as abusive, saying Franklin was the target of much of the abuse. In 1976 he changed his name to Joseph Paul Franklin. He selected Joseph Paul in honor of Paul Joseph Goebbels and Franklin after Benjamin Franklin. As early as high school he had become very interested first in evangelical Christianity, then Nazism, and later held memberships in both the National Socialist White People's Party and the Ku Klux Klan. He also has one daughter from a 1979 marriage. Franklin was a drifter, roaming up and down the East Coast, always looking for chances to "cleanse the world" of people he considered inferior, especially blacks and Jews. He sustained himself by robbing banks and often sold or traded the guns he used to kill others. Despite being partially blind in his left eye and completely blind in his right eye, Franklin was a proficient marksman, and killed most of his victims from over 100 feet (30 m) away. He did not touch or try to contact the majority of victims, instead assassinating them from a distance, thereby falling into the category of a mission oriented serial killer. He was a highly organized killer who would plan in advance several escape routes and techniques in which to leave no evidence. Franklin's level of violence continuously escalated; before he committed his first known murder, he fire-bombed a synagogue and sprayed mace at a racially mixed couple. Starting in 1977, he went on a continual murder spree, supporting himself by robbing banks. He admitted his racist ideology; God, he said, wanted him to start a race war. His targets of choice for murders were mixed-race couples, which he called "MRCs." Obsessed with hatred for interracial marriages, many of his killings were against black and white couples he encountered. In interviews, he explained that he planned the murders and his exit in advance, often changing his hair style and color, as well as changing clothes and vehicles often. He would listen to a police scanner during his escapes.

On one occasion, he threatened to kill President Jimmy Carter for his pro-civil rights views. He had also intended to shoot Jesse Jackson, but Jackson's security detail made an assassination attempt impossible; he changed his target to Vernon Jordan. An escape artist, he eluded law enforcement for years. He was eventually caught, however, when a nurse in Florida taking the blood he was selling recognized a bald eagle tattoo on his arm. Arrested in 1980, Franklin provided detailed confessions. He has been tried in several states and, in Missouri in 1997, he was sentenced to death. Franklin has been linked by either indictment or confession to 20 murders, six aggravated assaults, 16 bank robberies and two bombings. He has confessed to eight murders, and has received several life sentences or death sentences for others. He has also admitted to blowing up synagogues and takes responsibility for the 1978 shooting of Hustler Magazine publisher, Larry Flynt and the 1980 shooting on civil rights activist and Urban League president Vernon Jordan, Jr. Over the years Franklin has been linked to or confessed to numerous bank robberies, bombings and murders. However not all of his confessions are viewed as truthful and many of the crimes were never brought to trial.  He made several confessions in the late 1990s on the condition that he confessed to "an attractive white female investigator." In 1985 in Madison Wisconsin Franklin was found guilty of killing interracial couple Alphonse Manning (black) and Toni Schwenn (white), both 23 years old. The couple was pulling out of a shopping mall when Franklin rammed their car from behind, then got out and shot Manning twice and Schwenn four times, killing both. He was sentenced to two life terms.

In 1977 he pleaded guilty to the July 29, 1978 sniper murder of Bryant Tatum (black) and for attempting to murder his white girlfriend Nancy Hilton. The couple was at a Pizza Hut restaurant in Chattanooga when Franklin, hiding in tall grass near the restaurant, gunned them down. He was given a life sentence. Cousins Dante Brown, 13, and Darrel Lane, 14, were headed to a local convenience store in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 6, 1980, when Franklin, standing on an overpass, shot two bullets into each child. Lane died at the scene and Brown died a few hours later at the hospital. Franklin was found guilty and sentenced to two life terms. In Salt Lake City, Utah Ted Fields, 20, and David Martin, 18, were friends who shared the reputation for being hard working, responsible and with bright futures. On August, 20, they went jogging with two women at Liberty Park. Franklin hit the group with a barrage of bullets, striking Fields three times and Martin five, killing both. One of the women was injured. He was found guilty and received two life sentences. In Potosi, Missouri on October 8, 1977, Gerald Gordon, Steven Goldman and William Ash, had no idea a Remington 700 hunting rifle was aimed at them while they walked through the synagogue parking lot. Franklin, who had carefully planned his assault the day before, fired five shots at the men, killing Gordon and injuring Goldman and Ash. In February, 1997, a jury found him guilty and sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Eight life sentences and a death sentence have done little to change Franklin's radical racist views. He has told authorities that his only regret is that killing Jews isn't legal. During a 1995 article published by Deseret News, Franklin seemed to boast about his killing sprees and the only regret that he seems to have is that there were victims that managed to survive his murderous rage. Franklin is currently on death row at the Potosi Correctional Center near Mineral Point, Missouri.