Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Franklin Delano Floyd - Florida

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Franklin Delano Floyd - Florida






    Summary of Offense:

    In the spring of 1989, Franklin Floyd was living under an alias with his daughter Sharon and her son. Sharon and Cheryl Commesso worked as exotic dancers at a club. Shortly after St. Patrick’s Day of 1989, Floyd and Commesso were engaged in a heated argument outside the club, when a coworker of Commesso intervened. Floyd claimed that Commesso was responsible for Sharon’s loss of Medicaid coverage for her son (Floyd’s grandson). The coworker also knew that Floyd had recently struck Commesso and caused a bruise on her face. Commesso was last seen alive during the first week of April 1989. She left her house with a packed bag and told her relatives that she would see them the following week. Her car was located at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport, where it had been parked since April 7, 1989. In May of 1989, Floyd told a neighbor that he was going on vacation and asked the neighbor to mow the lawn and collect his mail. On June 15, 1989, Floyd and Sharon, using assumed names, married in New Orleans. On June 16, 1989, Floyd’s trailer burned down, and Floyd later called the neighbor and asked that his mail be burned.

    In March of 1995, landscape workers found the skeletal remains of Commesso in an area off Interstate 275 in Pinellas County, Florida. Roots growing in the skeleton indicated her remains had been there for six or seven years. In March of 1995, the owner of a Kansas auto repair business found a large envelope stuck between the truck bed and the top of the gas tank of a truck he had recently purchased at an auction. In the envelope, he found 97 small and irregularly cropped photos, including many pictures of a woman, beaten and bound, later identified as Commesso. The truck was traced back to Floyd, who had stolen it in Oklahoma in September 1994, but had abandoned it in Texas the following month. The medical examiner determined that injuries to the cheek of Commesso’s skull were consistent with injuries sustained by Commesso in the pictures recovered from the truck. Also, similarities in clothing and jewelry were found between the pictures of Commesso and items found with her remains. One of the pictures of Commesso contained an image of someone else’s thumb, which was found by an FBI analyst to contain multiple similarities to Floyd’s thumb. Many of the pictures contained images of furniture, a boat, and areas of a trailer, all of which belonged to Floyd.

    Floyd was sentenced to death in Pinellas County on November 22, 2002.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    In today's United States Supreme Court, orders Floyd's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED. This petition was on appeal from the Florida Supreme Court's denial of his state habeas petition.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/10-9889.htm

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    2,740
    Factors Contributing to the Delay in the Imposition of the Sentence

    The 3.851 Motion filed in 2007 has been pending due to competency proceedings.

    Case Information:

    On 01/09/03, Floyd filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court, raising the following issues: sufficiency of evidence, admission of collateral crime evidence, admission of photographic evidence, admission of expert testimony, improper State closing argument, applicability of Ring v. Arizona, and applicability of the Eighth Amendment. On 10/12/05, the FSC affirmed the conviction and sentence.

    On 01/08/07, Floyd filed a 3.851 Motion with the Circuit Court. A competency hearing was held on 01/30/07, and on 03/12/07, the Circuit Court declared Floyd incompetent to proceed. On 07/03/07, Floyd filed an amended motion. On 08/17/07, this motion was denied in part, and held in abeyance in part. On 07/27/09, Floyd was declared incompetent to proceed. This motion is currently pending.

    On 06/06/06, Floyd filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court, Middle District, which was dismissed on 06/28/06.

    On 07/27/06, Floyd filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court, Middle District, which was dismissed on 11/30/06. The Certificate of Appealability was denied on 01/18/07. On 07/14/10, the petition was amended and a motion to stay proceedings was filed. On 08/02/10, the USDC granted the motion to stay proceedings pending the resolution of state proceedings. This appeal is currently pending.

    On 12/11/06, Floyd filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, which reversed the lower court’s denial and remanded the case back to the U.S. District Court on 05/10/07. The petition was denied by U.S. District Court on 04/09/08.

    Floyd filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Florida Supreme Court on 06/03/08 that was dismissed on 12/17/08.

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On June 29, 2010, Floyd filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...ca11/10-12965/

  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On April 28, 2014, Floyd filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court. [Does this mean that the Eleventh Circuit had denied him on his previous petition and that the current petition is a successive one?]

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/flo...cv00495/296998

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Cold case solved: Man confesses to killing missing Oklahoma boy more than 20 years ago

    CHOCTAW, Okla. – The FBI believes they now have answers in a case that is more than two decades old.

    Investigators said 6-year-old Michael Hughes was kidnapped in 1994.

    The child was never seen again.

    The man last seen with him, Franklin Floyd, now sits on death row in Florida after being convicted of a murder there.

    For years, Floyd refused to tell authorities what happened to Michael, but now FBI officials said he has broken that silence.

    Michael and his principal were kidnapped from Indian Meridian Elementary School in Choctaw on September 12, 1994.

    “I can remember that day as plain as today,” said John Whetsel, the former Choctaw police chief and current Oklahoma County sheriff.

    Whetsel said it’s a day he will never forget.

    Hours later, the elementary school principal was found handcuffed to a tree about a mile and half east of the school.

    “Franklin Floyd and Michael left, never to be seen again for a long time,” Whetsel said.

    Floyd was later arrested but would never say what happened to Michael.

    In a NewsChannel 4 interview from 1995, Whetsel said Floyd was the key to finding Michael.

    “Until Floyd opens his mouth and lets us know where Michael’s at, it’s going to be almost impossible to locate him,” Whetsel said.

    For years, it has been a mystery investigators couldn’t solve.

    Last summer, an FBI agent went to interview Floyd and asked about Michael.

    According to the FBI, it was during that interview Floyd confessed.

    He told the agent he shot Michael twice in the back of the head.

    He then told the agent he buried the boy near the last exit leaving Oklahoma and heading into Texas.

    A search was done of the area, but no evidence was ever found.

    “When Michael took his last breath here on Earth, he took the very next breath in Jesus’ arms,” said Merle Bean, Michael’s foster-mother.

    At the time of his abduction, Michael was in state custody.

    He was living with Merle and Ernest Bean.

    The couple was unable to meet us for an interview but spoke to us by phone.

    They said they are grateful for the prayers of so many Oklahomans.

    “I feel like there is closure, and this is just where I want it to end,” Bean said.

    The sheriff agrees, even though he wishes Michael could have been found alive.

    “It’s not easy to accept, but at least it’s nice to know what happened,” Whetsel said.

    The FBI investigator who has worked this case said he hopes to interview Floyd again soon.

    That agent said he thinks Floyd may have answers which could help solve other cases, including what really happened to Michael’s mother.

    The boy’s mother died in 1990, and investigators believe Floyd may have details about what really happened to her.

    http://kfor.com/2016/04/12/cold-case...-20-years-ago/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #7
    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    IL
    Posts
    657

    Left: Family photo of Floyd and kidnap victim Sharon Marshall/Suzanne Marie Sevakis/Tonya Hughes. Center: Franklin Delano Floyd mugshot. Right: Yearbook photo of Tonya Hughes, under the alias "Sharon Marshall."


    August 10, 2021

    A Creepy Man Kidnapped, Groomed And Married His Stepdaughter

    By Chrissy Stockton
    thoughtcatalog.com

    Franklin Delano Floyd is a murderer who is currently on death row following his conviction for the 1989 murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso, a mother of three from Florida. He is also a person of interest in the 1990 death of his wife, Sharon Marshall, who was killed in a hit and run. That’s a pretty bad rap sheet in itself, until people started to dig into who exactly “Sharon Marshall” was.

    It wasn’t until 2014 that her real identity was discovered. It turns out, “Sharon Marshall” was actually Suzanne Marie Sevakis, a woman who had been kidnapped as a child from her mother almost 40 years earlier.

    Floyd grew up in a children’s home where he was allegedly raped and abused. He left the children’s home and tried to join the army but was discharged when they realized he was only 16. That year he was shot in the stomach by police while he was trying to steal from a Sears.

    At 18 Floyd got his first job at Atlanta International Airport. It only lasted a few months as he had to leave it to go to prison for kidnapping and molesting a little girl. He escaped prison a year later and robbed a bank. He was caught, charged, and convicted.

    He was released in January 1972. In November 1973 he attempted to kidnapped a woman from a gas station but the woman escaped. Floyd went on the run from the law and began living off the grid.

    In 1974 Floyd married Sandi Chipman under the alias “Brandon Williams”. She had three daughters (ages 5, 3 and 2) and a son (age 1) from previous relationships. After dating for one month Floyd convinced Chipman to marry him and move to Texas.

    In 1975 Chipman was sentenced to serve 30 days in jail for writing bad checks. When she returned home from jail, the house was abandoned and all four of her children were missing. “Brandon Williams” had vanished without a trace and taken her children with him. While Chipman found her 3-year-old and 2-year-old daughters at a children’s social service agency, she learned that her infant son had been adopted to another family. It wasn’t until 2019 that a man recognized himself as a possible match for the missing infant and in 2020 DNA tests confirmed he had been kidnapped as a baby.

    Not much is known about how Floyd lived undetected with Sandi Chipman’s oldest daughter, Suzanne Marie Sevakis, but we know that in 1989 the two had married and had a baby named Michael. At the time, Suzanne was using the names Tonya Dawn Hughes and Sharon Marshall and was working as an exotic dancer. Another stripper encouraged Suzanne to leave Floyd. Suzanne told her Floyd said he would kill her and her son if she ever attempted to leave. By April 1990, when Suzanne was 21-years-old, she was working up the courage to leave Floyd anyway. Around that time she was found dead on the side of the road, the apparent victim of a hit and run.

    Following the accident, Floyd put their son in foster car and left town. However, in 1994, Floyd went to Michael’s elementary school and abducted him and the school’s principal at gunpoint. After fleeing Floyd handcuffed the principal to a tree in a wooded area and left him. The principal survived. For some reason Unsolved Mysteries let Floyd toy with viewers and talk about his crimes on the show. At that time he maintained Michael was still alive though in 2015 Floyd told police that on the same day he kidnapped his son, he shot him twice in the back of the head.

    Notable in the Unsolved Mysteries segment, Floyd pretends he has not already been informed that paternity tests proved he was not Michael’s father.

    While investigating Michael’s kidnapping and “Sharon’s” hit and run death, police discovered Floyd had raised the woman as his daughter and then married her. In 2014, Sharon was finally identified as Suzanne Marie Sevakis. When her mother tried to get Floyd charged with kidnapping, she was told that as his stepfather he had a right to take her away. Floyd told people he had “rescued” the girl from her unfit mother.

    Suzanne Marie Sevakis had been a good student despite her home life. Attending schools under various aliases, she still earned a full aerospace engineering scholarship to the Georgia Institute of Technology. It’s likely that her career of exotic dancing was chosen by Floyd because it would be easier to hide her identity as an independent contractor, and because Suzanne was less likely to meet people who would help her recognize and escape from her abusive relationship.

    Photos of the physical and sexual abuse Suzanne endured growing up with Floyd were found along with photos of the beaten body of a woman Floyd was suspected of murdering in a truck previously owned by Floyd. The photos helped convict him of that murder and he is currently on death row.

    https://thoughtcatalog.com/christine...-stepdaughter/
    https://archive.is/XvtXW

  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Pinellas death row prisoner, focus of Netflix’s ‘Girl in the Picture,’ dies

    By DAN SULLIVAN
    The Tampa Bay Times

    Franklin Delano Floyd, a notorious criminal whose tangled and horrifying life story was a focus of the popular Netflix documentary “Girl in the Picture,” died last week after 20 years on Florida’s death row.

    Floyd died Jan. 23, according to court records. He had been incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution in northeast Florida.

    His exact cause of death was not available, but an attorney who once worked on his case described the manner as natural. He was 79.

    For the last two decades, Floyd had lived under a death sentence for the 1989 murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso, an exotic dancer whose skeletal remains were found in 1995 on the side of Interstate-275, near the Roosevelt Boulevard exit, in St. Petersburg.

    “A better thing couldn’t happen to a worse person,” Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett, who prosecuted Floyd, said of his death.

    Floyd’s legal case had reached a kind of stalemate, as he had been consistently deemed mentally incompetent in court for the last decade.

    He was severely mentally ill, said Maria Deliberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who previously represented Floyd in his appeals. Floyd’s mental state, and the state’s continued pursuit of his execution, prolonged his case and made it much more costly, she said.

    “Sentencing Mr. Floyd to death did not achieve any of the goals the death penalty purports to satisfy,” she said. “It didn’t keep the people of the state of Florida any safer, it dragged out the process for years and years, and it took a financial and emotional toll on everyone involved.”

    Commesso’s murder was one in a trail of bad acts that marked Floyd’s long, troubled life.

    When he was brought to trial in 2002, he was already serving five life sentences in Oklahoma and a 50-year federal sentence for other crimes, including the 1994 kidnapping of a young boy.

    The Netflix documentary, which premiered last summer, was partly based on the books “A Beautiful Child” and “Finding Sharon” by journalist Matt Birkbeck. The show detailed Floyd’s activities from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, when he lived as a fugitive under a series of aliases while raising a girl who later became his wife.

    Floyd began raising the girl, who was known to many as Sharon Marshall or Tonya Hughes among other names, when she was a small child. They lived in several locations throughout the American south and southwest. He made her work as an exotic dancer. They lived in Florida in the late 1980s, when she worked at the Mons Venus club in Tampa. Commesso had also worked there.They later lived in Oklahoma. She died there in 1990 in what was described as a mysterious hit-and-run accident.

    It was later discovered that she was not related to Floyd. Her true identity was unknown for many years. In 2014, investigators determined that her real name was Suzanne Marie Sevakis. She was the daughter of a woman to whom Floyd was married in the early 1970s.

    Sevakis had a son, Michael Anthony Hughes. Four years after she died, Floyd came to Michael’s elementary school in Oklahoma and kidnapped him and the school principal at gunpoint. He took the principal to the woods, bound him to a tree, and disappeared with Michael. When authorities found and arrested Floyd later, the boy was no longer with him.

    Years later, Floyd told FBI agents that he’d killed Michael and buried his body near an interstate exit in southern Oklahoma, close to the Texas state line. The boy remains missing today.

    Floyd’s connection to Commesso’s slaying came when the FBI began investigating a cache of explicit photographs that were found tied to the chassis of a truck that Floyd had once owned. Some of the images appeared to show a woman bound and beaten. Investigators later determined Commesso was the woman in the images and that Floyd’s hands were visible in some of them.

    At his trial, and in post-conviction litigation that followed, lawyers raised concerns about his mental state. He was known for rambling speech, angry outbursts and erratic behavior. In a 2009 court hearing, he professed a belief that he was the illegitimate son of the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. He was repeatedly declared mentally incompetent to proceed and ordered to undergo treatment.

    Prosecutors were skeptical of his mental illness.

    “I think he was just a person that lived his life outside the boundaries of obeying the law,” Bartlett said. “He’d gotten away with it for so long.”

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinell...ida-death-row/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •