Joseph Paul Franklin Talks to Beth Karas, Eight Days Before His Execution

Name: Joseph Paul Franklin Talks to Beth Karas, Eight Days Before His Execution
Uploaded: 2013-11-15
Duration: 1 h 15 min 56 s
Description: The full recording of a 76-minute death-row phone call in which Joseph Paul Franklin retraced the shooting of Larry Flynt and the killing of two Cincinnati boys.

The full recording of a 76-minute death-row phone call in which Joseph Paul Franklin retraced the shooting of Larry Flynt and the killing of two Cincinnati boys.

Subject: Joseph Paul Franklin, born James Clayton Vaughn Jr.
Interviewer: Beth Karas
Recorded: about November 12, 2013
Program: Wild About Beth
Broadcaster: Wild About Trial
Runtime: 1:15:56

Content warning: in this recording the speaker talks about his own violent crimes.

The Interview

This is the full recording, as published, of a telephone call between Joseph Paul Franklin and the journalist Beth Karas, made about eight days before Franklin was executed in Missouri on November 20, 2013. Karas is a former prosecutor and longtime Court TV correspondent. In the call, she and Franklin recall meeting in 1998 at the jail in Cincinnati, where he was tried for the murders of two boys, and Karas asks his permission to record. The recording runs for more than 75 minutes, ends partway through an answer, and was published without apparent edits by Wild About Trial, the trial-coverage outlet Karas contributed to at the time.

Historical Context

Franklin, born James Clayton Vaughn Jr. in Mobile, Alabama, in 1950, carried out a series of racist and antisemitic attacks between 1977 and 1980, shooting Black men and interracial couples, often with a rifle from a distance. He shot Hustler publisher Larry Flynt in 1978, leaving him paralyzed, and he was charged with shooting civil rights leader Vernon Jordan in 1980 but acquitted. He was convicted of eight murders in five states and received a death sentence in Missouri for killing Gerald Gordon outside a synagogue in Richmond Heights in 1977. He claimed responsibility for more killings than he was convicted of.

By November 2013 his execution date was set. Larry Flynt, the man he had paralyzed, was publicly opposing the execution. In the weeks before, Franklin had told interviewers that he no longer held racist beliefs.

Circumstances of the Interview

Franklin made the call from death row, crouched by the phone in a cage, as he describes it, on the same day he had given an interview to CNN. He says he is doing everything he can to avoid the execution, and he agrees his lawyers believe a stay is possible. The conversation is relaxed at first and becomes more pointed as Karas presses him on specific crimes.

What the Interview Covers

Franklin talks at length about his childhood, describing a mother he says beat him and kept him and his brother indoors, and he offers his own theory, drawn from a dream, that his crimes were a way of striking back at her. He traces his involvement with the American Nazi Party, the National States Rights Party and the Ku Klux Klan, and says he wanted to start a race war, an idea he says he took from Charles Manson.

He gives a long, detailed account of how he tracked and shot Larry Flynt in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in March 1978, and responds when Karas reads him Flynt's recent comments. Karas then confronts him with the 1980 sniper killing of two Cincinnati boys, cousins aged 13 and 14. Franklin explains his reasoning at the time and then calls it idiotic. He says he is no longer a racist and describes himself, in a word he says he coined, as "pro-Semitic". He complains that he never had a chance to present mitigating evidence in his Missouri case and gives his own account of why he confessed to that murder. In the final section he lists bombings and robberies he says he committed and discusses his childhood eye injury and his marksmanship. The recording ends partway through an answer.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Franklin gave several interviews in his last weeks, but most were published as edited segments or short quotations. This recording is the conversation as it happened, question by question, until the recording ends. It captures how he talked about himself at the end of his life: saying he had repented and renounced racism, while describing his crimes in precise detail and offering his own explanations, among them a dream about his mother and a claimed fear of being killed in federal prison.

Karas's questioning is a large part of its value. She returns him to the specific facts of his crimes. When he expresses outrage at a man who killed a child, she reminds him that the trial she covered, as she says in the call, was for his own killing of two boys. She also asks him directly whether he still considers himself a racist.

Archival Importance

The recording is a first-person account by one of the most notorious racially motivated killers in American history, made within days of his execution. It was posted by the outlet that produced it, and its provenance is documented by that outlet's own article. It places Franklin's late renunciation of racism alongside his detailed memories of the crimes it was meant to repudiate.

Important Caveats

Much of what Franklin says is his own account and is not established fact. That includes his claims about his childhood, the dream he cites as a motive, his time in solitary confinement, his reasons for confessing to the Missouri murder, and his descriptions of crimes for which he was never charged. He was convicted of eight murders. He was acquitted in the shooting of Vernon Jordan and was never charged in the shooting of Larry Flynt, though he admitted it. The call date is inferred from the conversation. The image on this page is from CNN's interview with Franklin the same week, not from this recording.

Beth Karas: Joseph.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Hey, what's up with you, Beth? How are you?

Beth Karas: Fine. Good to hear from you again after all these years. It's been a long time.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I remember I had a nice little chat there at the Cincinnati Jail.

Beth Karas: Yeah, that's right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] 1998 October 21st, 1998.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Was it October 21st?

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yep, that was the day the trial ended.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Oh, so you kept you kept track of that then, huh?

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] I did.

Beth Karas: Oh, good. And I kept track of you and you sent me a letter. Oh, listen, before we go further, I just want you to know and I want to make sure you're okay with my recording this. Is that okay?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Not a problem. Hey, any time you want to record it, it doesn't matter.

Beth Karas: Okay, great. Great.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I'm used to it, you know.

Beth Karas: Yes, you had an interview today, earlier today, right?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I got the one with CNN. They sent some [unclear] girl to interview me. I forget her name now. She pronounced it, but she was real nice. I enjoyed that kind of conversation.

Beth Karas: Yeah, good. How long did that last?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Huh?

Beth Karas: How long did that last?

Joseph Paul Franklin: That amount I think they gave us. I think that's usually the, you know, the maximum you could talk to a reporter at one day.

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: But it was nice to be able to get my side of the story out, you know, when she asked me some questions and all and let her know what I'm thinking. You know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Good, good.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I just hope it would be great if she aired the entire one hour interview and let the whole world see the story out. And you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Do you think they'll do that?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Huh?

Beth Karas: Do you think they'll do that?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I don't really know how they work it. I've never, you know, I haven't been able to watch TV the whole time. I've been in Missouri the whole 16 years. I haven't seen any interviews, all these TV shows that everybody has watched. I've read about them in magazines and newspapers, but never watched any of them.

Beth Karas: Right, right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, it's kind of odd, you know. So not, you know, going that long. not going that long, 16 years without watching TV. But some people like to homage voluntarily, never watched TV in their whole life, so.

Beth Karas: You know, I used to tell people, I'm on TV, I don't watch TV, I do watch it, but I go days without turning it on.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, and I don't blame you because it's better, some people just become hypnotized by it, you know?

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: It's better, this has kind of forced me to, you know, made me want, you know, start reading books more, you know, books, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, whatever. And so, I've become much more, you know, more educated than I was, better educated than I would have if I'd have watched TV, you know?

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Because with reading, you can, if there's something you want to remember, or a certain statement, or whatever phrase, you can write it down and study it later, and that's, you know, one of my, something I often do is, chop down, take notes from, you know, books and stuff that I read, if I find something like really profound, you know?

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: And put it in my notes, and then I can go study it later, and, you know, try to memorize it. That's a good way to memorize Bible verses too, write them down and then study them, you know, read them over and over again.

Beth Karas: Right. Right. So, let me ask you, just because I now have this opportunity, one-on-one to actually, you know, once again, talk to you and just understand you. Maybe you're not the same person today you were, years ago, are you?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Man, I have grown and changed so much since I talked to you Beth, you would not believe it if you were, spent some time with me, you know what I mean? I've just become, you know, different. You know, I was thinking way back then, you know, this is interesting. When I was at the Cincinnati Jail, I thought, well, I've been locked up all these years. I've learned a lot. You know, I think I could make it on the outside now, you know?

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: That showed you how little I knew back then. you know, how messed up my mind still was, throughout the nineties, man, I was just struggling over here. You know, and one thing is just the solitary confinement, you know, it tends to, I found people who've been locked down for many years in solitary confinement, you know, get kind of squirrely. You know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Yeah, yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: They start acting odd.

Beth Karas: Well, how long have you been in solitary?

Joseph Paul Franklin: You know, probably longer than any inmate in the United States, close to 33 years.

Beth Karas: In solitary?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, just about the whole time I've been in solitary confinement, probably more than any other inmate in the country. There's other inmates, you know, who've been incarcerated, you know, 33 years or longer, even longer than me, 40 years, 50 years, but that was not in solitary confinement, it's very likely a general population, you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Right. Right, right. That's a long time. So, you know what I want to do? I really want to talk about the reason you're even there, because you have spent more time locked up than you were out, right? You were 30 when you got locked up.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I was 30 when I got locked up, yeah, that's right, and I'm 63 now, so, actually, you know what you mentioned, I've been locked up longer than I was out there.

Beth Karas: Yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Actually, a lot of my life out there, Beth, I've never mentioned this to you before, but when I was a little, my mother used to make me and my brother stay inside all the time, you know, during school, and I think it was the fact that she, you know, we had to wear long-sleeved shirts and pants in the wintertime and shoes and socks, whereas in the summertime, she would let us out with a pair of cut-off jeans and no shirt and no shoes or socks, you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Wow.

Joseph Paul Franklin: You know, we were, she did the welfare of the project when they lived there in Bernville. We were probably poorer than even the other poor people. I kid you not. I mean I think that was her motivation but she would not let us go out at all during school. We had to come home from school, sit down on the couch, and stay there watching TV until time to go to bed, then we went to bed. Me and my brother Gordon could not go out and play ball with other boys, socialize. I think this funded our mental development. He went crazy, and actually crazy, and my sister Caroline had him put in a mental institution, the state mental institution, Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa for several years, and he eventually got out. And the last I heard was he was living in a group home in Panama City, Florida.

Beth Karas: So let me ask you, did you say your mother was rather abusive?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah. Do you think that's why you started killing people? Let me give you Caroline's number before I forget it.

Beth Karas: Oh. Okay. Caroline, okay.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah. Both of them now, Laurie, I talked to Laurie a few days ago on the telephone. I talked to her Friday, right?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: It was the first conversation I've had with her since 2011. I got her number from a man who works for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Beth Karas: No kidding.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I kid you not, my friend.

Beth Karas: Southern Poverty Law Center.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yep, right there in Montgomery, Alabama.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] That

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] attracts people who are like you.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah, yeah, they got that Klanwatch.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yes,

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] that's right, like you.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah, like me, yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: But you know what? I've been talking to the people there, and they're pretty nice people, though. I like them, you know. I think they really, they realized that I was mentally ill at the time, you know, and not responsible for what I was doing. You know, I was, you know, my mind was warped, otherwise I would have never committed those crimes. I realize now I realized now that I was wrong, you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: You do? You realize you were wrong about everything you did?

Joseph Paul Franklin: About every single crime, every law that I broke. It was wrong. From robbing banks, to bombings, to carrying out murders. Very wrong, you know. I, you know, repented of my sins, asked the Lord for forgiveness, so, you know, I'm going from there, you hear me?

Beth Karas: When did you first get, like, the urge to kill?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Huh?

Beth Karas: When did you first get the urge to kill?

Joseph Paul Franklin: You're the first person that's ever asked me that question. [from captions: first get the urge to kill]

Beth Karas: Really?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah. See, here's what, let me tell you about an incident before I forget it. I'll tell you, my mama was full-blooded German, right?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Her parents were born in Germany. Both her mother and father were born there. Mama was born, though, in Jersey City, New Jersey, back in 1914, right?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, so anyway, I guess they settled for a little while in Germany before they went to Alabama and, you know, bought some land there and, you know, began farming. You know, they had cows and horses, I know that, and had a pecan orchard and an apple tree and a pear tree. And, let's see, maybe I think some fig trees. And, you know, there were blackberries there where they could take blackberries and make jelly and stuff out of them. You know what I mean?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So anyway, kind of living off of land, I guess you could call it. But mama told me her mother used to beat her with that, so she passed it along to us. And I think she was worse than, she had to be worse than her own mother on us, but she made me and Gordie stay in, sit on the couch. At first, me and Gordie didn't like sitting on the couch all the time. We wanted to go out with other boys and play ball. You know what I mean? Like any normal kid. So we would go to the bedroom where we both slept on a double bed. We would open and match the screen and crawl out the window and go play. Our friends would play with them, right? So to counter that, my mother wouldn't let us go into the bedroom anymore. So we had to stay right there in the living room and sit on the couch except when we wanted to go to the bathroom and then she would watch to make sure we didn't sneak out and go out the bedroom. You see what I'm saying? So to avoid that problem, avoid that situation, I began both things toward the door and unlocking it real quick and running out. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So you know, I just hated sitting in there all the time on the couch. All the time she evidently loved watching TV with her fat self and would sit there all night long watching TV thinking if she loved it so much, we must love it too. You see what I'm saying?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So anyway, to keep us from running out the front door, she got Carolyn to sit up there and guard the door. So whenever I tried to run out the door, she was standing in front of me and stopped me. You know, she was two years older than me. You know, the morning was two years younger, Marilyn was seven years younger. But anyway, that prevented, you know, when you have to stay in like that all the time, your personality can't develop like other people, normal people can develop, you know what I'm saying?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So a couple of that with the malnutrition, you know, not getting any nutritious, very low nutritious food [from captions: me with the male nutrition] throughout my childhood, that can also affect your child's brain development. It pretty much warped my mind, and I was at least ten years behind everybody else mentally. You know what I mean? I was just very immature and just didn't know what other kids knew. [from captions: didn't know you know just] But anyway, I had to endure getting beat up and yelled at all the time. She seemed to not want anybody to have a moment's peace. And my daddy told me one time that she would call the police on him and have him arrested at the drop of a hat. So that's why he left her. Their divorce became silent in 1965. Anyway, while I was at the Marion Federal Penitentiary during the 80s—that was before I met you, right?

Beth Karas: You met me in 98.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I know. But I said I was at the Marion Federal Penitentiary during the 80s before I met you.

Beth Karas: Oh, you're making a fact. I thought you were asking me. Okay, yes.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Anyway, while I was there, I had a number of dreams. But one of them that kind of stands out in my mind was one night I was told in a dream that I had killed my mother.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] You know?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I was told that I—

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah, I was—

Joseph Paul Franklin: Consequently, I was guilty of matricide, you know, murdering your mother. And so, after thinking about it for a while, the dream was basically telling me that all the crimes that I committed— So during that three-year period, I was, you know, committing those crimes. I was basically striking back at my mother. That was my way. It symbolizes me getting back at my mother.

Beth Karas: Yes. So that's that's a long answer, but now I understand that's your answer to my question. [from captions: killing her for what she done to me you hear me] When did you get that first urge to kill? But something must have happened like in 1977 when I mean, it didn't you didn't start with killing your crimes didn't start with murder. Your crime started with a bombing and would spring and interracial couple would never get there. and went spraying an interracial couple with Mace. I mean, what happened? Why did you join the KKK and become a neo-Nazi?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Why? Well, I became, got involved with the Nazi Party long before I became involved with the Klan. Matter of fact, it was, it was 68 when I got involved with the American Nazi Party. You know, I was just 18 then. And I didn't get involved with the, become a member of the, well, first of all, I became a member of another white supremacist organization based in Marietta, Georgia, called the National States Rights Party, which most people in Georgia are familiar with, but not most people in the United States. But it wasn't until 1976 that I became a member of the Klan, and it was so infiltrating with FBI informants, I dropped out after a few months, and what we were fooling with. There weren't very many genuine clansmen, and as a matter of fact, I was watching a national educational documentary on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that has this, you [from captions: uh I mean uh uh uh] know, those programs that come on the front line.

Beth Karas: Yes, yes.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I used to watch that channel all the time, and they had a documentary one night, And they mentioned a [unclear] chapter of the Klan in South Carolina. And they said of all the members of that chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, only one of them was a legitimate Klansman, all the rest of them... [from captions: were informant for the FBI]

Beth Karas: No kidding.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, kid you not. And that's the type of thing going on now. The FBI has got them totally infiltrated these white nationalist organizations. And it's just, they pretty much, a lot of them, it's easy for them to influence those, you know, the races, because all they've got to do is use the word, hit the N word just one time, and they've got those races, delete Fox's phone for hook, line, and sinker. They think just because they use that N word, they're on their side. You see what I'm saying? They don't suspect anything at all as far as they're concerned. They're good people beyond reproach. So it's very easy for the FBI to infiltrate those organizations because the people are so dumb and gullible, you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: But Joseph, you were different from all, I mean, you wanted to start a race war.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Huh?

Beth Karas: You wanted to start a race war, right?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I wanted to start a race war. That was my motivation, you know, and I got the idea from Charles Manson.

Beth Karas: Really?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, yeah.

Beth Karas: Do you admire him or something?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Uh-huh.

Beth Karas: Do you admire Charles Manson?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, I used to. I used to admire him. And that was not uncommon. A lot of other members of the Nazi Party admired him, too, and other white organizations because they knew that he was against blacks and all that. You know, they just liked the way he was trying to set up a, you know, get a race war story. [from captions: like the thing like uh] [from captions: racehorse door well maybe not that method because he was he] He tried to do it by pulling a bunch of whites, you know. Even though they were rich, they were still whites. And I tried to do it, you know. the opposite way by killing blacks, you know, or interracial couples. I took a different tack, you know, than him, and so, you know, but basically I was trying to do the same thing, hoping other white supremacists would see what I was doing and say, hey, look, let's go, we'll go do it soon. And it would happen so often that it would get a race war story, but it didn't work out that way. They weren't interested in copying me at the least bit. Most of them were all talk and no walk, you hear me?

Beth Karas: Yeah, and you were, I mean, you kept this up from 77 to 80 and you were all over the country. I mean, I'm looking at where you were convicted, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, Utah, but you claim that you murdered in other states as well. Those are just the states where you were convicted. Well, let me ask you before we talk further in detail about, you know, that crime spree, I want to ask you about one person in particular who's been very vocal lately, somebody you tried to kill and didn't.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, Flynt.

Beth Karas: Yes.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah.

Beth Karas: Why'd you do that?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, because, well, I was literally ill, but the reason I did it at the time was because he was publishing pictures in the magazine and hustler of mixed race couples. So I got really nipped at that and decided to kill him, you know. That's basically how it all started. But how did you find him? Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you. I went to Columbus, Ohio and checked the city directory and found out that he lived in Bexley, a suburb of Columbus, and went to the headquarters of Hustler on West Gay Street and tried to just, you know, just kind of cased it to look around and see if I could find a place to shoot him if he can. the shooting if you came out. There was an alley in the back that had a bunch of surveillance cameras in it. I mean, it was incredible how many surveillance cameras were in that alley in the back. I guess that's the entrance he used to the headquarters of Hustler. But anyway, it would have been hard to get a shot at him from there. But then I found out that he went to North Carolina and was staying at the home of Ruth Carter Stapleton. You know, Jimmy Carter's sister who was a fundamentalist Christian. And so I looked around, went and drove by her house, and nothing came of that. But then I happened to be in Atlanta in the early part of 1978. And I saw on the news one day that Larry Flynt would be trying in Lawrenceville. I was staying at a day's end there in Doorville, Georgia, somewhere in Atlanta. So I thought, well, I'll check out of here, get a map, and find out where Lawrenceville is. Not knowing, Lawrenceville was just a little ways up Highway 85. You hear me? So I went to locate it and found out he was really close, close to Atlanta. So I checked into another motel and then started going out there every day looking around over in Lawrenceville, you know, at the courthouse there, looking for a place to ambush him. So that's how our family caught up with him. You know, there's a song called, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. You remember that one by the Charlie Daniels band?

Beth Karas: And You're the Devil?

Joseph Paul Franklin: No, I thought, no, I considered Larry Flynt the Devil. He went down to Georgia. I would not go down to Georgia. I was from Alabama.

Beth Karas: Got it.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So it would have to apply to Larry Flynt. So to me, that that was, that symbolized Charlie Daniels was singing about Larry Flynt as far as I was concerned. very flint as far as I was concerned back then. I was very much in the country western at the time listening to that song and others.

Beth Karas: Tell me about that day. I mean you were scouting the place out, looking for the right time, so how did the right time come about?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well I read in the papers I was keeping up with all the articles in the newspaper about the case and I got some very good information from one of the articles that said that Larry flint would walk from the courthouse every day for lunch to the cafeteria. So I realized instantly that was some good news, some good intelligence. So I waited until and after the evening and went back up there and walked that route from the courthouse to the cafeteria even went in there and ate when I was there. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: We went to the cafeteria and ate a meal that evening and so then I left and walked slowly back to the courthouse looking for a place to ambush you. So as luck would have it, there was an empty building right there before you get to the courthouse. So I went around and looked around. It was really evidently been empty a long time. No screens on the window. It was all dirty looking and boarded up so I was able to get this board off a two by four that have been nailed to the back porch off and open the back door. So I went into the back door and saw that [from captions: went into the back you know] there was a front door with window open with no glass there. I figured this would be the They figured, man, this would be the ideal place to ambush them. You hear me? So anyway, I didn't want to be seen while I was standing there waiting for them while I was shooting, either. So I went and got one of these croaker sacks from somewhere. I forget where I got it. I bought some thumbtacks from a drug store and hung it up over the door of the window of the front door. You hear me? And so anyway, I got the rifle. I didn't even have a gun to shoot with, to tell you the truth. I had to go look up an advertisement in the paper. And some gentleman in Douglasville, Georgia, had a .44 Magnum Marlin for sale, lever action. So I went out there and looked at it. It looked pretty good. I bought the gun from him, went back, and the trial, according to the media, had been scheduled to end Friday. For some reason, it was carried over to Monday. I took that opportunity to go there on that weekend and buy the rifle. Had it not been carried over to Monday, I would have never got it. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Because you didn't have a rifle.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I didn't have a rifle to shoot with. I can't even remember exactly what kind of gun If I had a pistol, I always wanted to try to keep a pistol on me, so I think I had a pistol, but I wouldn't have wanted to use my only handgun for shooting like that. I did not have a rifle. I had to go out there. Luckily, I found that one, came back, brought it to that vacant house, went to one of the back bedrooms that had a window on it, and stuck it to the window, and set it up against the wall at that point in time, though. It slipped down, and I thought, you know, it fell on the floor, you know. I should have been more careful when I set it against the wall from where I was standing outside the window. I thought maybe the scope had broken or something, so I got it checked, but luckily it had not, you know, affected the rifle at all when it fell on the floor. So anyway, I went there, came back again, parked in the back, which was also the parking amount of a bank, you know, nearby, went out there and waited, and, you know, a bunch of secretaries walked by. I heard them talking and laughing, and, you know, I was scared. I was really terrified to tell you the truth, standing there, and then all of a sudden I see two men coming from the left from the direction of the cafeteria, so I thought I would clean me early enough to be there that he hadn't walked by yet, but evidently he had and was returning to the courthouse. So I thought, you know, there's a couple of men passing, I'll put the scope on the crosshairs on them and follow them a little, you know, with it a little bit, just for practice. You hear me? So anyway, I picked up the .44 Magnum rifle, put the crosshairs on one of them, and immediately recognized him as being Larry Flynt. Isn't that something?

Beth Karas: So you thought you were just going to sort of practice, and it was actually Larry.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, man, it was just, it was, it was wild, you know, I mean, I'm thinking, here's the guy, walking by, I'm just going to put the crosshairs on him for a minute, and, you know, pretend like that's Larry Flynt, and, you know, you know what I'm talking about?

Beth Karas: And you fired.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Just for real practice. As soon as I recognized it was Larry, I pulled the trigger, you know. I racked the action real quick and pulled the trigger. Got it one time, the other guy, by the time I looked back through the scope again, the So, looking back through the scope again, the other man that was with him had disappeared. I couldn't see it. I heard later that he had ran, even though wounded, and hid behind a car. Then Larry Flynt was leaning up against the—

Prison telephone system message: This call is from a correctional facility and may be monitored and recorded.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Leaning up against the wall of somebody's yard. So I changed another shell and shot him again and then ran out the back window. I mean ran out the back door. You hear me?

Beth Karas: You only fired twice? And you hit a man each time you fired?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I hit the man each time. He got shot twice with a .44 Magnum and incredibly lived through it.

Beth Karas: How far away were you?

Joseph Paul Franklin: You could just visualize the street and then the front of a building that's sitting on that street and then across the street. It wasn't very far at all. It was very, very close. I mean, I could shoot much further than that and still be accurate. But I wasn't really that great of a shot. Early in 1978, I hadn't really had a lot of practice at that point in time.

Beth Karas: Well, that's pretty good. Two shots. You hit your target each time. How did you get away?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, I had a large, oversized pillowcase that I knew that rifle would fit into, so I stuck it in for that pillowcase real quick. So in case anybody saw me running in about in the parking lot with it, they wouldn't be alarmed. So anyway, as luck would have it, nobody was in the parking lot. You know, I'd been there a few times before and parked the car there and had seen people either getting into the cars or leaving. you're getting into the cars or leaving, you know, either arriving or getting into the cars. But anyway, luckily, nobody was in the parking lot. Nobody saw me get into my car, throw the rifle in there. So also, as I was leaving, I heard some tire squealing. Almost as soon as I fired the second shot, I heard somebody peel out of there. You hear me? And so I found out later, a couple of young guys were in the Camaro, and they heard the shots. I guess it scared them and thought somebody was shooting at them, so they peeled out of there. So when people, witnesses come out and saw, heard the shots, and looked to see what was happening, they saw that Camaro leaving, peeling out of there, and thought they were the shooters. So they called the police and told them someone had got shot, and two people were leaving the scene at a high-range speed in a Camaro. So then again, when the police got that information, they broadcast an alert all over for that Camaro while I was driving around away in a Torino. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Right. Nobody's looking for you.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Huh?

Beth Karas: Nobody's looking for you.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, nobody was looking for me, so I just took them off and went back to my motel, got rid of the gun, cut it up into pieces so that they could never do any ballistics test on it. I forgot, it's been so many years ago, I actually forgot where I threw the gun, but I would dismantle it with screwdrivers and stuff, cut the barrel in half with a, like, I first began using a pipe cutter that Plumbers uses, you know, to cut that barrel in half, and then I bought a black and decker drill with a grinder on it, and started using that, the black and decker drill to cut the barrel off. Because once you cut the barrel off of a gun, the police... [from captions: can no longer do any ballistics] ballistics on it. All the lands and grooves on the inside are all messed up, you know what I'm saying? So anyway, I mean, they could they could still, if you were to chamber a gun, I mean, if you were to eject a gun, a bullet from the gun after empty shell, after it's been fired, they could still match that the print on the mark on that shell to the firing pin. I guess you could probably avoid that though, by taking a piece of sand paper and scraping that firing pin for a little while. I've actually done that for one time too on the gun. So that the marks that you that they found on the entry crunchers would not match them.

Beth Karas: Right.

Joseph Paul Franklin: The firing pin. So anyway, yeah, so anyway, I got rid of the gun. So they could never ever do any ballistics test and match that to me. You see what I'm saying?

Beth Karas: So that was March 6 1978. And you went on to keep killing into the well into 1980. So the rest of 78 79 80. But let me just ask you a couple more questions about Larry before asking you a few other things. At the time you shot him, did you think you killed him?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I felt pretty sure I was convinced. Yeah, I killed him.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah.

Beth Karas: So when you learned that he wasn't dead, rather he was paralyzed.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Then I became upset and went to the hospital and started driving around the parking lot thinking maybe I could finish him off that way.

Beth Karas: Maybe you could what?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Finish him off. Maybe. I don't know. I was thinking maybe actually going into the hospital room and blasting him with a pistol. You know, but you know, that never panned out. I never really thought about it further after that.

Beth Karas: How many times did you go circle the hospital?

Joseph Paul Franklin: It's just one time only went there one time and then I left. I figured it is And I left. I figured it would be impossible to get another shot at it. So I just left.

Beth Karas: So what do you think was more impactful if you had killed him or having paralyzed him?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, I didn't want to have some magazine published anymore. That was my goal. I did not want that magazine to be seen on any more newsstands. So that was basically my motivation for going out there.

Beth Karas: I thought it was always because you saw an interracial couple in there. Was it that too?

Joseph Paul Franklin: That is the reason why. That's the reason why I didn't want Hustler published anymore.

Beth Karas: I see. It wasn't that you were anti-pornography. You were anti the interracial couple.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, just the interracial stuff. As far as pornography in general, I really wasn't tripping on that. I had nothing against Hugh Hefner. Bob Guccione. Bob Guccione and the rest of them. As a matter of fact, I like Bob Guccione. I really like him and the magazine. [from captions: guccion I think you know he] I really didn't have anything against Playboy either, for real. Hugh Hefner either. [from captions: you know you have there]

Beth Karas: So I don't know if you're aware of this, and maybe you are because you've given some other interviews to people, but recently Larry Flynt wrote an article. Let me read you three lines from the article. It says, in all the years since the shooting, I have never come face to face with Franklin. I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire cutters and pliers so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. But I don't want to kill him, nor do I want to see him die. What's your response to that?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, I appreciate the last part, the last two things he just said. [from captions: huh what's your response to that what do you have to say] I just don't like the part about torturing me, though, for an hour. [from captions: you know I really don't like the] [from captions: you know yeah I mean that would wouldn't be uh] I don't think He would do anybody any good. And for real, that is not the will of the Lord to seek vengeance against us, to seek vengeance against each other. He tells us in the Bible, vengeance is mine, I will repay. So it's the Lord who will be calling everybody to account on Judgment Day and making them pay for what they've done. We should not ever try to seek vengeance against anybody, try to pay anybody back for what they've done. When you keep on thinking about stuff like that, it actually hurts you. [from captions: you know you know if you] And I think people should just forget about it, forgive people for what they've done, because they've done things, too, to hurt people, and they need forgiveness, too, for all their sins. So it isn't a good idea. That is one thing I can guarantee you. I would not like to torture anybody in this world. I don't care how bad they've done anything, no matter what they've done, how bad they've been. I have no desire whatsoever in my heart to torture anybody.

Beth Karas: Just kill them. I mean, maybe not now, but in the past, just kill them.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, that would be the best thing right there, you know what I mean, if they really were so that vicious and evil. I mean, I was reading, I heard about somebody in Columbia, I was in one of these classes that they were making this take at the Potosi Correctional Center. and there was a little bit of news on, you know, I would go to that class, which lasted about an hour, and he just happened to have this TV on it in the classroom, and I don't know what it was—I think it was a news channel, but they had a story about some man who murdered a thirteen-year-old girl, and I just felt to myself, I mean, that was absolutely outrageous, you know, and for more than a minute, I would have liked to kill the guy.

Beth Karas: But Joseph, you killed a thirteen-year-old boy? That's the trial I covered. It wasn't a girl, he was a boy. Thirteen and fourteen, the cousins. You killed children, too.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I know it. But here's the thing about it, Beth. I consider a boy a whole lot different from a girl, to tell you the truth. Not that that was the right thing to do. You know, I've repented to that sin and realized I was wrong, too. But I was in a situation where I had just been to Detroit, Michigan the previous year, you know, I've gone up there to buy a car, to tell you the truth, trying to buy a car real cheap. I've been told once that you could get cars real cheap there, you know, because there are so many automobile major factors there, that you could buy a used car there at a real cheap price, you know, a real cheap price, you know what I mean? So, when I was up there, you know, I kept up with the news, and there's a story in the paper about a little eleven-year-old girl, who I'm pretty sure was white, and she was walking to the store one day, and some... young black boys, about fourteen years of age, jumped on her and raped her and strangled her and cut her with a knife and beat her in the head with something and left her on the trash pile moaning. Somebody came by and they found her moaning on this trash pile. And so I became so outraged about that, I guess it didn't really matter whether I hit teenagers or not. You know, I just, I'd heard so many, about so many rapes committed by black teenagers sixteen years old. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. [from captions: 16 17 18 19 uh lives] I lived in Washington, D.C., the whole area, you know, D.C., Maryland, Virginia for five and a half years altogether. They used to have a youth corrections act there and any crime committed by a juvenile whether anything, even serious things like rape, murder, whatever, were only punishable by a few years in a juvenile detention center. Once he became twenty-one he was automatic and released. He could rape anybody he wanted to, kill anybody in Washington and under this youth corrections act he could not spend any more, serve any time past his twenty-first birthday. So there I had met drawn white women who had been raped by sixteen year old black guys and it was just outrageous. And, you know, rape was kind of like an epidemic for portions in Washington, D.C. with these young white women who had come from cities on the east coast. They would come get the job for the government. The blacks outnumbered whites I think in seventy percent in Washington, D.C. They would rape left and right, catch I guess these young girls in their car, I met, I knew one of them. I actually met one, knew a black guy, who told me he would wait in their car, have a credit card in his hand, yeah, a little plastic credit card. He would get it, sneak up behind them, stick it in their neck. They would think he was a knife, and he would rape them. And man, you know, it's just, I just heard so many cases over and over like that. You know, being from Alabama and not being used to a big city like that, to be all of a sudden exposed to that sort of situation, and reading about the stuff in the newspapers, and listening to it on the radio, and, you know, actually I didn't watch much TV then, but, you know, I would keep up with the news in the newspapers, and I was just outraged, you know, and so.

Beth Karas: Well, let me ask you this, if I'm hearing you, because I hear your words, does that [from captions: cuz I I I hear] mean that when you killed these two cousins, these boys, black, 13 and 14, walking to the store after school in 1980, basically you were killing them because you were angry that other black teens had raped white women? It shot and killed white men, and robbed. These boys didn't do anything, but you were taking it, you were blaming them, sort of. Is that what you were doing?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I know. It was idiotic what I was doing. You know, I figured that, you know, it was just something common among blacks period, and I was taken out on random blacks, black men everywhere. And I encountered them for what other blacks had done to whites, and it was absolutely foolish. I was stupid to even think about doing that. I mean, those two guys... I would have never even thought about doing that, harming them today. [from captions: I mean they was I I] I would have helped them if they needed it, but I wouldn't even think about harming them. Now that I know what I already know, I was just really crazy back then. My mind was warped. I would have never even thought about killing young teeners or like that. I didn't know that they were quite that young. I thought maybe they were just 17 or 18. I couldn't really tell, but they were far away.

Beth Karas: Let me ask you, I want you are far away. You're up on the railroad tracks, I'll remember. [from captions: yeah um I have a um] I have another question.

Joseph Paul Franklin: It was dark. It was about 10 o'clock at night. But you know, this is something I've never told anybody about before. But as they were walking my direction, I was sitting there on the... You know, right there on the other side of the railroad tracks, where I had a view of the sidewalk there, you know? I don't know if you've ever looked over that area or not, but...

Beth Karas: I remember the area. I'm not sure I sat up where you were, but I remember the area.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Uh-huh, yeah. Railroad track crossed over. And I was sitting on the, you know, I was actually laying down or crouched by the railroad track. The first one, I hit the first one first with the rifle, it was a little .44. It happened to be a .44 Magnum II, except it was a Ruger rifle. And as soon as I fired the first shot that night, it was real quiet and still, by the way. But I hit the larger, the taller one first, and the second one bolted immediately. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Yes.

Joseph Paul Franklin: He just started taking off real fast, you know, after hearing that rifle shot to my left. So I had no time to take the crosshairs and put it on, you know, the movie target like that. on a moving target like that. So I just swung the rifle to the left and fired a shot where I thought he might be. Incredibly, it hit him. I could not believe it. When I saw in the papers, I thought they must be lying. I could not have hit that second.

Beth Karas: Wow. Bad I did not know.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, but it was incredible. I mean, the fact, I mean, I could just swing that gun up there and not even be looking at him. You know, I just didn't have time to get to look through that scope again. I just fired out there in the dark and they hit him. So it was just incredible that I got both of them that night. But anyway, I later read in the papers that they had killed both of them, you know, that's how I found out about it.

Beth Karas: And there you were in the daytime pretty close with Larry Flynt and his lawyer, and both of them lived.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, both of them lived. Yeah, that was another thing too because both of them, I used the same caliber, 44 Magnum on them.

Beth Karas: You're pretty good shot, Joseph, for somebody who had issues with your eyes, your eyesight when you were young, right? [from captions: had um you have like you] I don't know how you're such a good shot.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I don't either, but you know, well, actually I do know it just took practice. I couldn't get the broad side of a bond when I started out and the sound of the rifle began practicing with a 30 out of 6. That's even a little bit more powerful than a 30.

Beth Karas: I want to go back to Larry Flynt. He said something else recently. Let me read you this statement again. Maybe you've heard it. Maybe not. Here's what he said recently. I find it totally absurd that a government that forbids killing is allowed to use that same crime as punishment. But until the death penalty is abolished, the public has a right to know the details about how the state plans to execute people on its behalf. What do you think of that statement?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, Larry's very idealistic, you know. I mean, I like to agree with him, you know, he says in his book that he's a big supporter of the ACLU, and I agree with a lot of their aims, too. You know, I just wish that they would have put more effort into freeing those, you know, all those men they got on Gitmo who are being held there without charges and due process and law, you know, just like a communist country. I mean, it's outrageous that this is supposed to be a democracy. We'd be holding somebody there without any charges or anything, have never been convicted of anything, sentencing those men, and they're innocent men. See, they're innocent until convicted in the court of law. They're holding innocent men in prison the rest of their life just because President Bush declared the enemy combatants.

Beth Karas: Yeah, it's a different system. You know, it's not the system that prosecuted you, but it is still the United States. Let me ask you this. One more question about Larry Flynt. If you could speak to Larry Flynt, if you could have that face-to-face conversation that you've never had, what would you say to him?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, that's what the lady from CNN asked me today, too, you know? But, you know, what I've been—let's see. How can I say this now? What I would like to see them see Larry do is come over here, you know, well, it might not be time now, but I wish he could have come over there, you know, scheduled, you know, set up a media visit, and came over there to Potosi himself to interview me on camera, you know, and I would have gotten— And I would have got to talk to him there even though it would have been through telephones and glass or while I was in full restraints. I think it would have been a good thing for us to be, or it would still be a good thing for us to be face to face.

Beth Karas: Well, what would you say?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, first of all, I would apologize to him, you know, and tell him I'm sorry, you know, I asked for his forgiveness for the harm I caused to him. You know, I've repented to that sin. I realized now I was wrong. That was his business. You know, I was just, I just got too, went crazy over nothing, you know, I mean, it should be handled legally. You know, if I would have, didn't like it, I just could have maybe, you know, not bought the magazine and encouraged others not to, but I still should have, should not have got that upset about it. You know, I should have tried working, only working within the system and not ever even think about breaking the law. I realize now that's a good thing, though, to always work within the system. I encourage everybody, anybody affiliated with any white nationalist organization, whether it's the skinheads or the clans, to always work within the system, you know. Everything will work out a whole lot better that way. Violence is the worst thing you can do. It's just totally, you know, that's totally a bad idea.

Beth Karas: Well, when did you come to that realization? How long did it take you?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Man, it took me many, many years to think of this, to think a lot of things through. Man, it's just, you know, you would not believe that all the, you know, all the years I've had time to think about this and think these things through. You know, really, this has turned out to be a blessing, you know, in disguise, you know. You know, I thank the Lord that I got called. I thank the Lord that I got caught, and before I could commit other kinds, and for giving me this opportunity to change and become a much better person, you know what I mean? So I've had a great opportunity to change, to grow and change, and if I'd have been out there on the streets working a regular job, it would have never occurred to me to try to become a better person. You have so much opposition when you're in prison with charges like mine. People hate your guts like you would not believe. Guards, inmates, you know, I've had black inmates cuss me out and threaten me.

Beth Karas: Do you consider yourself a racist still?

Joseph Paul Franklin: No, of course not. No, I ain't a racist. No. That is not right. It's a sin to hate somebody because they're racist, because God is the one who created people the color that they are, you know, and it's just wrong to hate somebody just because they're racist because you'll find a lot of good people in other races, you know? You'll find people black who'll help you out sometimes when whites won't, you know? I had to find this out since I've been incarcerated, and, you know, it's not a good idea to hate somebody just because of their race, and I do meet occasionally inmates who are racist in here, and it's just not a logical way of thinking, though, to tell you the truth.

Beth Karas: What about anti-Semitic? You're on death row because you killed somebody who's Jewish.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, I'm pro-Semitic now, by the way.

Beth Karas: Pro-Semitic.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, yeah, I was anti-Semitic, you know, but then I'm pro-Semitic.

Beth Karas: If you could turn the clock back...

Joseph Paul Franklin: It's the new word I just coined.

Beth Karas: Yeah, right, pro-Semitic. If you could turn the clock back to 1976, you haven't bombed any place, you haven't robbed any banks.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] I don't know.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] I wouldn't even think about breaking the law at that time, you know.

Joseph Paul Franklin: You know, knowing what I know now, you know, of course I would not. I would know not, you know, not to, you know, break the law or try to harm anybody. But at the time, I had very little knowledge, you know, so that's, I think that's key. The knowledge that you have, you know, I've learned so much over the years of being in solitary confinement, I've had the time to do a whole lot of studying, you know, try to educate myself and improve my mind. I've probably spent more time studying than most university professors have spent studying. Plus, I've had a lot more time to think things through than they have. I'm probably a better thinker, out-of-the-box thinker, than most professors and anybody else in this country.

Beth Karas: Do you think that you were treated fairly by the system? You weren't prosecuted for all the crimes you say you committed, but you were prosecuted for eight killings. You were prosecuted for shooting Vernon Jordan, but you were acquitted of that.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, and that goes to show you that a person who's guilty can be acquitted just like conversely a person who's innocent can be convicted. That has happened too.

Beth Karas: Yeah, but you know, a finding of not guilty, Joseph, is not really a finding of innocence. It just means there's not enough proof.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, there's not enough to convict you to prove you're guilty, even though you may be guilty.

Beth Karas: But do you think that for the prosecutions you've had, trials and pleas, that you were treated fairly?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, in which case, for example?

Beth Karas: Well, how about the case that landed you on death row?

Joseph Paul Franklin: No, I don't think I was convicted. I didn't get a really... [from captions: uh I got a it was it was pretty]

Beth Karas: Not a fair trial?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, here's the thing. They were extenuating circumstances in one case. I was, you know, I wound up at the Marion Federal Penitentiary. And you know, as you know from reading, another journalist know from reading the news, you know, you're here about a case in the news, the guy goes to trial, gets sentenced, life in prison or whatever, or I guess, you know, gets a death sentence, that's the last you hear of it. You know, so in my case, you know, I get, get tried in Utah, convicted in federal court and state court of first violation of civil rights and then state court of murder, sent to the Marion Federal Penitentiary and, but then all of a sudden I have to wind up confessing to this, get extradited over here, tried again for another thing and then get sent to death row. But I did not get an opportunity to present any kind of mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of my trial. And the reason why is because I was in the catch 22 situation because there were a bunch of the fags at the Marion Federal Penitentiary wanted to murder me. I was told in the dream to confess to this Richmond Heights case. So, you know, it never would have occurred to me by the way, on my own just to confess to that kind of, you know, it never occurred to me. Luckily I had that dream that told me to confess to this crime once I knew that if I got over here and was given just a life, Like with the other case in medicine, I would just be sent back to Marion where I would be murdered in a matter of days or weeks. So because I had to choose between those two alternatives, I chose getting a death sentence over here. And I knew I would live at least a little longer if I was sentenced to over here than if I went back to the Marion Federal Penitentiary.

Beth Karas: Right. Hang on. I can't hear you too well. Are you talking into the phone? Or is your battery getting low?

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] No, I actually wouldn't know.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] I don't know.

Beth Karas: Okay. I hear you better.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] Yeah.

Joseph Paul Franklin: What happened was I'm just I'm squatting down by the phone booth there.

Beth Karas: Oh. At the phone cage. I see.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I'm squatting down and I just got the phone not in my hands. I just got it in between my shoulder and my chin.

Beth Karas: I got it. I see.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I slipped down a little bit. Yeah. I'm glad you, thanks for letting me know about that. But anyway, I was, you know, pretty much in a catch-22 situation. It was either, one, get a life, get life sentence for this, get sent back to Marion, get murdered by a bunch of fags over there, or get sent to death row and take my chances over here. So I chose the latter. You know, I figured I'd have a better chance. At least I will live a few years longer before I was executed. You see what I'm saying?

Beth Karas: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Paul Franklin: So at that, you know, that gave me no opportunity to present any kind of mitigating evidence, you know, and testify during the penalty phase of the trial. I am convinced right now, I guarantee you, that if I were allowed to present evidence at a penalty phase trial, [from captions: at a pen at a] got that opportunity for the first time, I'm pretty sure, 100% sure, that a jury would come back after hearing all the evidence with life in prison instead of a death sentence.

Beth Karas: Well, I'm sure that that... issue has been taken up on appeal, hasn't it?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I don't think so. I don't believe Jennifer even has, well, she hasn't mentioned that to me. I've never saw it in any brief. I really wished I had a chance to bring that up with the court, you know, I wish I'd had a chance to bring it up with the appeals court and, you know, but Jennifer for a long time wouldn't even accept my calls and I couldn't even talk to her or give her any ideas. You know, she's talking to me now since, you know, I've got an execution date that's so close.

Beth Karas: Well, let me ask you about that because that's like eight days away.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah.

Beth Karas: Like, are you ready for this?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Uh, no, I ain't ready for it, no, I'm trying to, I'm doing everything I can to try to avoid it, to tell you the truth, you know, I'd like to try to, I mean, that helped me out. I mean, Flynt, getting up there and saying that, that was, you know, that took a lot of courage to, you know, you gotta admit somebody who had been shot, going to bat for somebody who had shot them, I mean, that was a good thing, you know, wouldn't you agree with that?

Beth Karas: Well, you say that again, I couldn't understand you.

Joseph Paul Franklin: What is that? Somebody who got shot like Flynt, you know, going to bat, speaking out against the execution of the shooter, I mean, that took a lot of courage, you know, wouldn't you say that?

Beth Karas: Um, yes, he's stating he's a very outspoken man. He's very steadfast in his opinion that the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment, but I don't know if it would have any effect on a court. He's not the victim in any of your cases. He's not the victim or the victim's family in Missouri.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, not in Missouri, no, but he was a victim in one case.

Beth Karas: Yes, but he wasn't, you weren't prosecuted for that. but he was a victim and you're saying that, you know, it certainly may carry weight in the court of public opinion, but I don't know about with the Missouri court.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah. Well, you know, I'm sure they read it. I mean, they hear about that in the news themselves.

Beth Karas: [speaker attribution uncertain] Sure. [from captions: just like anybody else in the public you know]

Joseph Paul Franklin: Every Supreme, every Justice from the Missouri Supreme Court has probably heard about that. And even the governor of Missouri has probably heard about it, Jay Nixon, and the attorney general, Chris Coster, and, you know, the law enforcement officers who, you know, in Richmond Heights, Missouri probably heard of it. And, you know, everybody involved in the criminal justice system here probably knows about Flynt saying that. And I think it does affect people, you know, and at least makes them stop and think, you know, that the rich people with a whole lot of money can hire these, you know, high powered lawyers and have them, you know, leave no stone unturned and looking for ways to acquit them or get them off of the life sentence. But a poor man like me just doesn't have all that clout, and it's usually the poor people who get executed and not the rich people, you know. It's all about money, you know, the people with the finances, you know, have a much more advantage than we do, you know.

Beth Karas: So you met with your lawyer today, right?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I met with a lawyer who was working with my team, a woman named Jessica. [from captions: the uh uh with with with] Have you spoken to her yet?

Beth Karas: No, I have not. I didn't know her name. Do your lawyers think there's a chance of a stay?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, yeah, I guess so, or they wouldn't be trying to work on it.

Beth Karas: You covered a lot of states. you bought a lot of guns, I mean, how were you getting money?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Robbing banks, you know.

Beth Karas: How many bank robberies were you prosecuted for?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, I was indicted for seven of them, according to an FBI report I saw. But I was never, I wasn't convicted of any except for the one in Chattanooga, and that's the wooden confess to it. They just didn't think it would be worth their while to invite, you know, indict me or try me for bank robberies when I was facing so many counts of murder as it was, you see what I'm saying? And so the bombings, they never attempted to try me for. If it had been just the bombings, they would have tried to convict me of them. If it had been just the bank, you know, just the bank's holdups, they would have tried to convict me of those. You know, they ain't going to let anybody get away with robbing a bank, you know what I mean?

Beth Karas: So what did you bomb, I forgot?

Joseph Paul Franklin: I bombed a synagogue in Chattanooga. I bombed a house of Morris Amitay in Maryland, and I bombed a, I put a pipe bomb in the Socialist Workers' Party bookstore. That was the first one when I started that way. [from captions: start out with bom the] I bombed a black nightclub in Jackson, Mississippi, and I put a pipe bomb on the door of a synagogue in Kansas City. And I was surprised how much publicity that case got, you know, during the summer of 1978. And it was a pretty big pipe bomb, too. I was, I had the bomb, you know, hooked up with a fuse, and I had a cigarette. I timed exactly how long a cigarette, it would take a cigarette to burn an inch. And so I took the cigarette and stuck it onto the fuse and put it in the shoe box and walked over to the synagogue with it while it was lit. That cigarette was lit. You hear me?

Beth Karas: Oh, my God.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Man, that was dangerous. That would have went off while I was carrying it. Man...

Beth Karas: What year was that?

Joseph Paul Franklin: 1978. Man, that was a dangerous thing to do. I sat it very carefully by the door of the synagogue and walked back to my car and started it and drove off. I heard later that people in the neighborhood had heard the explosion. It was so loud. I was surprised that it made the nightly news the next day. It was on the TV and on the newspapers. And they were talking about, oh, we haven't really had any Nazi activity in this city. I guess there weren't very many members of the American Nazi Party living there.

Beth Karas: Well, how did you pick your targets, either to bomb or the people, besides Vernon Jordan and Larry Flynt? But how did you pick all these other people who weren't famous public figures?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, just by chance, you know, just happened to be counted in some place, and I figured that I could just consider them enemies of the white race, and, you know, it was pretty much open season on them. I didn't really look at them as human beings, you know, I was just, had been so indoctrinated

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] with Nazi literature, it's kind of...

Beth Karas: How would you decide when to kill, though? Like did you say, tonight I'm going out to kill?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, it never occurred to me, you know, just think something like that. I was just always on the lookout for a target. Well, the whole three years I was on my mission, there wasn't any time when I was... there wasn't any time when I wasn't looking out for a target.

Beth Karas: But it's, Joseph, it's not like you were using a little concealed weapon. You were using these long distance, you know, these big guns, long guns, right, to shoot long distance. So, I mean, if you're always looking for a target, you had to have some preparation because you had to be able to hide yourself somewhere and pull out a big gold gun.

Joseph Paul Franklin: [speaker attribution uncertain] That's a lot of what?

Beth Karas: And you had a lot of planning. I mean, you had to think about it. You had to find a place. You had to, I mean, it wasn't just you're always on, I mean, it can't be you were just always on the lookout because these, you were scoping out places and you were hiding guns and you were pulling out these really long guns that you can't walk down the street with easily.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, that's the thing, you know, prior to that I'd never heard of anybody actually taking rifles inside of a big city and shooting people with it, at least doing it and not getting away with it, but it just takes, you know, [from captions: and not and getting away with it] I wasn't actually going out there just shooting at people at random. If I had been just, you know, interested in just killing people, you know, just for the sake of it at random, you know, no matter who it was, it would have been a whole lot easier, you know, like one of those creeps that would go into, like that movie theater out there and shoot and kill a little four-year-old girl, you know, that guy who's opened fire and all those people in that theater a while back, do you remember reading about that?

Beth Karas: Yes.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, you know, that kind of crap makes me sick. I would have shot somewhere like that if I'd have known he would, he'd put in and do something like that. I just considered myself like a vigilante, you know, and was out to get the people who are committing most of the crimes who I thought were the blacks, who were committing miscegenation, which I thought was genocide of the white race, you know. If I'd have encountered anybody like that guy or those guys, those creeps who at Columbine High School in Colorado, I'd have wasted them in the New York Minute. You know, because I would have considered them in the same category as the mixed-race couples and the blacks who were now raping and murdering white people. You know, they would have been in the same category as far as I'm concerned. I would have shot them in the heartbeat. I would have known what they were planning to do in advance. So that was the type of thing I was in, kind of a law and order type. And my work thinking was basically I felt like I was just on the side of the law. Being a vigilante, doing what the police officers were not doing, should have been doing. So, you know, believe it or not, I actually, when I was really bored, growing up, I always wanted to be a police officer, you know, like my uncle, Rudy, Rudolph, was a mobile police officer for years. Back during the 50s, you know, his, I would wear his police hat when I was a little toddler and he had his little shirt with the single woman, the patch and stuff on the sleeves. and I remember the shirt was so big on me when I put it on, and it would hang down in the floor, you know, the shirt would hang down in the floor behind me, you know. And I would wear this little plastic gun holster that my parents bought me. And I would pretend like I was a police officer, you know. So I grew up wanting to be a police officer my whole life. When I turned 17, my mother told me she had been talking to one of the local police officers there in our neighborhood. But if he told her, somebody who's blind in one eye and one eye could not be a police officer. It was, you had to pass the physical, and that would make me ineligible to be a cop. So that pretty much changed my life, and so, you know.

Beth Karas: So are you actually blind in one eye?

Joseph Paul Franklin: Well, yeah, I was legally, you know, injured when I was seven years old. Me and my brother were playing in front of our front yard when we lived in New Orleans. You know, my family moved over there. My sister, Carol, was born in New Orleans, by the way, back in 1948. You know, the rest of us were all born in Mobile, but we were pulling this spring out of a shade that had two sticks attached to the end of it, and my brother pulled his end, and I pulled mine, and he released his end, and it sprung right toward me and hit me right in the right eye, you know. Seven years old, and I could just see nothing but red in that eye, red crying to my mother. I was sent to Charity Hospital, you know, for about a week or so, and there would be it in the hospital, it was a little dormitory with some other little boys in there, and the doctor, you know, I remember him telling this, telling, saying, be sure to bring him back for this operation. A cataract had formed on the eye, and had they been allowed to take it off, I would have been able to see out of it, and the doctor, I mean, he emphasized and repeated that to my mother. I still remember that when I was just seven years old, bring him back so we could do this. The irresponsible person that she was, she never brought me back to the hospital, so I've had the cataract of my eye ever since. I actually went to an ophthalmologist in Alexandria, Virginia, back in the mid-70s, and asked him about that and said, could this cataract be taken off? You know, could you remove the cataract? When I was able to see out of my eye game, he said, well, you probably could, but since it's been on there so many years, you would probably have double divisions, so I would recommend you not, you know, against having the operation, you know, let something happen to the other one because, you know, he said something, I probably have double divisions.

Beth Karas: So because of the cataract and the injury at seven, because of the cataract and the injury at seven, you're legally blind in your right eye, yet you are an incredible marksman with your left eye.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, that's kind of, wow, you know, I could not even fire bolt-action rifles because, you know, they have the action that's on the right side. I could not, you know, line my eye up right eye to look through it through the scope with a redless-type rifle. I had to use either basically just a slap, a pump shotgun, or a pump rifle, or a lever action like that. We just put the left side,

Beth Karas: so you squeeze it, you close your right eye anyway, so you just need the one eye. Got it, okay.

Joseph Paul Franklin: I would just kind of lean over it with my left eye and work the action with my left hand, just like a left-hand person does.

Beth Karas: Got it, okay, now I understand.

Joseph Paul Franklin: Yeah, so, you know, I got pretty good at it just through practice. That's basically how it happened. I'm kind of slow at learning, but once I learn something, I'm usually better at it than most people are, you know. So it took me a while, but I learned how to shoot really fast and accurately, you know. There's not very many people that can shoot as well as I can as fast and as accurately as I can.