January 2, 2020 • 42 mins
The past ten episodes have been driven by the question: Who killed Michael Francke? Here is a recapitulation of the players, timeline, evidence covered... And a huge development regarding Frank Gable’s fight for freedom.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murder and Oregon as a production of I Heart Radio.
For thirty years now, the murder of Michael Frankie has
cast a dark shadow over the state of Oregon and
its institutions. He was a good and decent man, a
former prosecutor and judge, hired just the year before to
(00:20):
serve as director of the state's corrections department, and he
was stabbed to death on the night of January sevent
outside the office building where he worked in Salem, known
as the Dome Building. Much of what happened that night
remains a mystery. Frank Gable, a twenty nine year old
petty thief and small time drug dealer, was arrested for
(00:43):
the murder about a year later. Journalist and author of
Phil Stanford has been investigating the Frankie murder for three decades.
It was not an accident. It was not a car
burglary gone dad. He was a public official who discovered
option in his own department heads We're going to rule.
He was about ready to demote or fire some of
(01:06):
his his top aides. He had already gotten rid of one,
a lawyer who had been working there for over a decade.
The night before he was to address the legislative committee
on this very subject. He was stabbed in the heart
in front of the building where he worked. It was
a cover up from the beginning. They couldn't afford to
even look at the people who might have done it,
(01:27):
so they selected a patsy, and they made up the
evidence against him, put him on trial, and got a conviction.
Those sons a bit. For more than thirty years, Gabel
has adamantly maintained his innocence, and to this day, much
about the Frankie murder investigation and Gabel's subsequent arrest still
(01:51):
remained shrouded in secrecy. But a few things do seem clear.
The investigation into Michael's death was more than a cover up.
The corruption Michael Frankie uncovered and the individuals tied to
that corruption, and possibly Mike's murder, has not been properly pursued,
(02:12):
which is why for the past ten episodes of Murder
and Oregon we've been asking the question who killed Michael Frankie.
I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is Murder and Oregon.
(02:46):
The morning of janu Kevin was working at his construction
company in Florida when he got the call and he
was already suspicious before that. Oh yeah, a couple of
weeks before where he'd had a phone conversation with Mike,
and Mike had told him that he had discovered an
organized criminal element in his department and he was going
(03:08):
to be cleaning house. And initially he's told by Dick
Peterson that Mike was shot, when in fact he was stabbed. Yeah,
Dick Peterson, deputy director of Oregon Corrections, tells Kevin that
his brother Mike has been shot. Here's Michael, Frankie's younger brother. Kevin,
what's going through my mind? I think it's probably what
(03:28):
goes for everybody's mind when you get a tragic event,
is that I knew in my heart that I would
get out here and somebody would tell me it's a
big mistake. It was somebody else. Mike's okay, he's over here.
The person up on the patio was somebody else. Just
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my thinking and feeling was this overwhelming grief and sadness.
Kevin immediately flew to Oregon, as did his older brother Pat.
Remember seeing Pat, it looked like he just had the
weight of the world at his shoulders and we could
(04:12):
just hug each other and to All I said was
it's true. That was it. And then when Kevin gets
out to ore Agon, he's interviewed, initially by Detective Lauren Glover. Right, yeah,
I think it's that morning at the Dome building. Lauren
(04:32):
Glover was a state police officer who was one of
the principal investigators in the Frankie murder. I assume that
Glover asked the expected questions that you would ask in
a murder situation. Right, do Mike have any drug habits?
Mike had any drinking habits, They have any gambling habits? Uh?
Do you know if he was having affairs with anybody?
(04:55):
They tell you this, They tell you that, and I
said no. What he told me was that the uncovered
an organized criminal element and it kind of went over
his head. And we know this because years later we
got the officers notes is that his brother was running
into problems with his top staff. And then the Frankie
brothers went with the police to Mike's house to get
(05:19):
clothing for the funeral for Mike's body, and what they
saw there was pretty amazing. Here's Pat, the oldest Frankie brother.
We went out to his house, his wife and I
here her dad, my brother Kevin with the police to
pick up clothing for the funeral people. There was a
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forty five caliber pistol in the bed that had been
under his pillow, and a twelve gage state radgun leaning
against the slanting glass door that opened that onto a deck.
And uh, the deck and the sidewalk down below were
littered with hundreds and Hendred's of spent twelve gays shot
gun shells. Even after doing the walk, practicing with the
(06:05):
twelve gage that isn't a normal activity. I don't think.
I don't think that's how I would I want to
spend my life sleeping with a pistol under my Not
only would it seem that Mike was concerned for his safety,
but the state's official narrative of the murder as a
car robbery gone bad just didn't make sense. Well, it
(06:27):
wasn't much of a robbery because he still had his wallet,
he still has his watch. What was missing was his briefcase,
and in that briefcase would have been floppy disks. That's
what we have to assume. Yes, there was also unusual
activity at the Dome building the day after his body
(06:50):
was found, which would have been a Saturday and in
the reported scene, a number I think it's twenty three
or something like that burned eggs of beauty pretty much
that had been gathered up over the weekend. There were
twenty three trash bags full of papers that were carried
out of somewhere, and I would suspect some of it
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came out of his office and they were all shredded.
The Frankie family was assured the investigation was a top
priority and cautioned not to talk to the press, but
Kevin in particular, remained skeptical from day one. I didn't
believe that somebody was there stealing something out of Mike's
(07:36):
club compartment and killed him. The whole scenario, everything just
seemed absolutely wrong because of what I knew about my brother,
the fact that he would grab somebody who does who
in their right mind thinks that Mike gives a ship
about anything they're going to steal out of a state
car seriously. After the funeral, Kevin went back to Florida
(08:00):
and back to his business there, spending most of his
time trying to conduct a long distance investigation, which was
very difficult because he really didn't have any contacts back
in Salem. He was just calling blind in the corrections
department phone book, and then a witness came forward. Shortly
after Kevin got back to Florida State Police held a
(08:22):
press conference and said they had a witness. It was
a maintenance person, who it turned out was a janitor
named Wayne Huntsaker. He said he saw two people. He
turned because he heard something like a grunt sound or
a hurt sense, like somebody getting punched in the gut,
And he turned around and he saw two guys facing
(08:42):
each other. At that instant, one turned and ran this way,
and the other one went back into the dome building.
The two men, he described, one was taller than the other,
and then one turned around and ran from the dome
building across the big green field there towards the State Hospital.
(09:03):
So the other one turned around and walked back to
the dome building, he said leisurely at the time. But
what strikes me here is very odd is that the
one who turned and ran was noticeably taller than the
one who turned and walked back to the dome building.
Michael Frankie was about six three or six four, which
means that the guy who turned and ran he was
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as tall as an NBA basketball player. It doesn't make
any sense. It doesn't fit. About a week after the murder,
the police held a press conference and announced they were
interested in talking with a man who had been seen
in the Dome Building the night of the murder. He
was seen in the Dome Building at six thirty, which
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was about an hour after the building had been locked
to the public. He was wearing a dark suit and
the woman thought it was a pinstripe suit. He's quickly
became known as the Man and the pins Ripe Suit. Now.
The thought that there was a guy inside the building
and a guy outside the building is also interesting in
(10:09):
light of the fact that we know that the number
three in command under Mike's department, Dave Coullie, said that
he was afraid to go check Mike's office because he
was afraid he'd find him dead from a suicide. Correct,
that's what Callie said. Who's the guy in the pinstripe
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suit and is stabbing him? The best thing? And I
think was planned that he was there was supposed to
be a suicide. Pinstripe suit was supposed to disarm him,
get him in his office, and either take him somewhere
and kill him. At home, or have him doing the
suicide here make it look like a suicide, and make
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it look like a suicide. I don't know if they
knew that he always used the north portico door instead
the main entry door, because the pinstripe suit was seen
at the main entry door going back and forth and
not here. So if he came at here and the
objective was to kill him, and now he's getting loose
and you have to stop him, then the ship has
(11:15):
the fan. After months with no information, Kevin's back in
Florida and feeling desperate when he gets an unusual tip. Yeah,
a friend hands in the newspaper article about a psychic
who helped the local police and said, you might as
well try her. So Kevin gave her a call and
they got together. She said that they've got somebody in
custody right now. They think that he might have done it,
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but he didn't do it, but he knows more than
he should know. His name's John Kay something called Glover.
And I asked him, I said, do you have somebody
in custody right now? He said, yeah, who snitched yet?
We got a leak in There's who told you at that?
(12:01):
And I said I went to a psyche and she
said that he has somebody in custody right now named
John Kay. He says it's c craft. One of the
most obvious things that Johnny Kraloss knew that he couldn't
have known unless he had been there, was the nature
of the Frankie's wounds. One stab mark to the left arm,
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probably a defensive wound, end the fatal wound to the heart,
and Johnny cross I knew that it hadn't been released
to the public. But in addition to that, he described
the scene. He said Frankie had come up on him
when he was breaking into the car. He tried to
get away, he couldn't. Frankie was too strong. They struggled.
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He had a knife, still trying to get away. He
started slashing at him, and then he stabbed him. The
wounden went out of him and he turned and ran
towards the old hospital, across the huge green lawn there
and around the green generator, which is exactly what Hunds
sacred the janitor the State cops first witness said he
(13:10):
saw that night Kevin and Mike's brother Pat Frankie would
visit Johnny Krauss in prison looking for answers. And I
went to the penitentiary with the Cross's lawyer, and I
had a series of questions written out on the three
but five cards that I showed Kraus through the glass.
I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to recorded
what I was asking and what he was responding to.
(13:33):
And I asked him about eight or ten questions and
he indicated that he didn't do it, but he knew
who did do it and if he'd been willing to
cooperate along those lines, Pat called Phil with a bombshell,
Krowse shared. He said, Pat, this goes to corrections. You're
onto something Pat told me. I put that in the column.
(14:03):
After Johnny Kraus's confession. He even took cops on a
ride to show them where they could find the bloody
clothes he ditched after the murder. During that ride, Kraus
also suggested a bit of a detour. The police took
him in the police car to show them where he
had buried some clothes that he had worn that night,
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and as they were driving down Park Avenue, two blocks
from the Dome building, which is where Michael Frankie worked,
Kraus said, if you want to go see where the
knife was that killed Mike Frankie, go over to ninety
two Park Avenue, and that's what Dale Penn in the
car and to state cops and cross his attorney, and
they couldn't take two minutes out of their drive to
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the penitentiary to stop by two Park Avenue just to
check him out. And that afternoon, the record shows he
came back and at a meeting with the open and
Sarah Moore, who was then the lead prosecutor on the case,
and said that he had been approached by two officials
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and corrections offered ten thousand dollars killed Frankie, but had
backed out of it, and that someone else had done it.
So all this is going on behind the scenes, and
we don't know it until the records are released some
time later. But what we do know is that shortly
after that, Johnny Krauss was dropped as a suspect, and
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in fact it eventually given immunity by the d a's
office on the condition that he not recant his recantation.
So it's that they didn't like his confession, they didn't
like the people his confession would ultimately lead to. That's
what it looks like for sure by now Kevin was
done taking orders from the folks behind the official investigation
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and gives filled the green light to report on the
corruption he knew his brother was investigating. Phil does and
includes a copy of a police sketchy's tracked down. It's
of the man in the pinstripe suit. And then Governor
Neil Goldschmidt retaliates against both Phil and Kevin. That's what
set off gold Schmidt. Next thing I knew he was
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holding the press conference. He's saying, issue after issue is
in the paper, and nobody has ever stopped to say,
where does this garbage come from. You're impugning the character
of the Oregon State Police, which is an independent investigation.
He held another press conference and called it VS. After that,
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gold Schmidt's office and the Prosecutor Dale Penn started attacking Kevin,
saying there is no evidence at all that members of
the Frankie family said anything about this organized criminal element
in their initial interviews with the State Copps, which of
course was not true. Even as the official investigation pushed
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the narrative of of a car burglary gone bad, there
was another development that pointed in a very different direction.
An inmate named Conrad Garcia came forward with shocking allegations.
About six months after Michael Frankie has murdered. He goes
to his counselor in prison and tells the counselor that
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he knows something about the murder. He says he was
approached by Tim Natividad to do the murder and he
knows that Scott McAllister, the prison lawyer, arranged it is
their record of that. I pulled up the report by Lawrence,
Conrad's counselor, and it says this is what the task
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force wrote from his report. Lawrence was interviewing and M
Garcia concerning institutional matter. During the conversation, Garcia told Laurance Mr.
Frankie was killed by Timothy David Natividad. This was arranged
by Scott McAllister, so that's information they had. Conrad stated
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that tim Natividad killed Mike Frankie and that Scott McAllister
had put him up to it, and he told that
to his counselor and John Lawrence gave that information into
the State Police via the tip lines and the tip sheets.
To the State Police investigators regarding Mike's murder, and we
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spoke to two women extremely involved and familiar with Timothy Natividad,
also known as Rooster, and both believed he was violent, volatile,
and very capable of murder. Here's Carrie Rothschild who was
barely a teen when she was trafficked by her mother
to Natividad, a drug dealer. Carrie was even with Natividad
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when another murder was committed. There were some gunshots and
the door opened and somebody in the other room had
shot one of the people that he was with and
killed him. And he had them over his shoulder and
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I've got I mean, I've had nightmares about this day forever.
But um, he's carrying him, you know. And then he
takes them out side and put some in a trunk
of a car. And I went with him in the
van and I helped him, unfortunately clean up the blood
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because it was on him. And he looked at me
and said, will never ever speak of this again? And
I was so scared. Carrie's mother, Melody, was muling large
amounts of drugs into the prison with the obvious protection
and knowledge of people in power. He's moving a lot
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of drugs into the joint. She's going into visit three
times a day, seven days a week, which is unheard of.
You've got to have some sort of connection there to
get in that many visits. You're not allowed that many
that often unless your name doesn't go on the visitation records,
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So you must have known somebody that could get you
in with that documenting your visit. Carrie recalls corrections guards
and officials coming to her house to visit her mother, Melody,
who was desperate to get her fourth husband, Conrad Garcia,
out of prison. When not tivid I would come to
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our house. Usually he would come alone, and he came
to our house on a couple of different occasions with
different people. One time he came with who I believe
is Scott McAllister, and then the other time he came
with someone who I believe is the guard from the prison.
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They pulled up in government vehicles and I only know
that now from working in the field of federal law.
Liz god Love was Natividad's living girlfriend, gave birth to
his son, and was often on the receiving end of
his violent mood swings. Tim got extremely dangerous, holding knives
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to my throat and choking me out, and like the
police weren't. Really there's nothing they could do. I filed
restraining orders. Tim would get locked up for the day
and get out. It would be worse, and she says
Natividad became increasingly unhinged after Michael Frankie's murder. It was
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really super paranoid, angry, sad, mad. All the emotions were
like a lot of crying and shaking and not letting
me out of his side, not letting me go to
the store, or not letting me have family over keeping
the blind shut and saying don't let anybody in, do
not answer the door, and if I'm here, I'm not here,
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you know, don't ever let anybody know I'm here. He
wanted to move to Bend in my house in those
two weeks He's telling me all this. He wanted to
go to Hawaii, so he had all these big plans
right away. Two weeks after Mike's murder, Liz would shoot
Tim to death in self defense. Then months later she
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would see the police drawing of the man in the
pinstripe suit, the composite drawing that came out in the
newspaper and on the news. Looked to me and my
sister Karen, it looked like Tim, do you remember what
you found and what you said when you saw Really
we were shocked and said, oh my god. So she
went to the police as I said, you guys, I
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think Tim killed Michael. Frankin needs you to look into it.
Tim always carried an knife. Tim had a huge knife collection.
Tim was violent. Tim told me he killed somebody, and
I think it's Michael. Look at this composite drawing. And
they laughed and said, you can't convict a dead man.
(23:13):
There's nothing we can do here. And Tim Natividad is
never pursued as a suspect. No, despite what Conrad Garcia
told his counselor that he had been approached by Natividad
to do the murder and that he thought that Scott
McAllister was behind it, they never really pursued that. No,
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they never did. Why do you think one obvious possibilities
They couldn't have investigated him without investigating McAllister, and they
obviously did not want to investigate McAllister. And so it
was about this time the investigation started zeroing in on
small time drug dealer named Frank Gable, just completely out
of them blue. They had no physical evidence knocking him
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with the crime, and how did they build their case
around him? So what they did was to talk to
a motley collection of X cons and jail birds who
had serious sentences, in some cases hanging over their heads
and get them to make up stories about Gable. They
used lie detective tests, polygraphs to shape the testimony and
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just about every case. I got the phone call at
home on April ninth, the morning of April night, and
it was Captain Dennis O'Donnell on the line. He stated
his purpose for the call was to inform me that
they had indicted trying Gable for the murder of Mike.
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And I said, you gotta be shipping me. I said,
why are you calling me? Because I was expected that
if there was a call, that would be calling from
the d a's office. And he said, we flipped a
coin and I lost. Convinced there was more to his
brother's murder, Kevin picked up and moved to Oregon. He
(25:07):
wasn't exactly welcomed. The very first night that I was
in Oregon, I got my tire slashed. Then I got
a note saying welcome to Oregon, I go home, placed
on the windshield. The Salem and State police would try
to make his life a living hell, and they'd go
beyond verbal harassment. It's not verbal when there's a gun
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pointing in your temple. And that happened several on several occasions,
one in particular that nearly turned deadly. I sat there
wondering if I was going to see the windshield blow
out before my brain said it to. All kinds of
weird things were coming into my head now. I kept
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watching the cops in my rear view mirror, and because
they had the light shining in the outside mirror here
and I could see about five cops back there. In
the meantime, Gable's trial said Yeah, the lawyer assigned to
Gabel's case, Bob Aabel, was hardly capable of handling such
a big, important, complex case. He was on the skids
(26:13):
himself as a lawyer, and he was a heavy drinker. Besides.
In fact, his own defense team was so concerned that
he wasn't prepared for Gabel's trial that they approached the
judge at the time with a formal letter asking to
postpone the trial. They sent Judge West a letter saying
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just that, and nothing came up. But the trial went forward.
Here's local television reporter Eric Mason. I think all of
us realized there was nothing really the connected Frank Gabele
to this crime, and that the people who had told
the story that and had become informants and stitches against
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Frank Gabele, they were all professional layers. They were all
people who had made serious, big deals before in their
lives with prosecutors and understood the system in the way
it worked. Jody and Shorty Harden were supposedly the state's
star witnesses. They're only eyewitnesses after they got their stories straight.
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They claimed to have been in a car at the
Dome Building on the night of the murder and to
have seen the murder, but their testimony contradicted the only
reliable witness the state had on the stand, Hansacker. Right, Hansaker,
who saw the two men in front of the Dome Building,
would have also seen the car that Jody and Shorty
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were in, but there was no car there. And in
the trial this this is a pretty good example of
how incompetent able was. He didn't even try to point
this contradiction out, and the jury was never told about
Johnny Krauss's confession and Tim Nativotide's name was never even mentioned. No,
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the Drey had no idea that someone else had confessed
to the crime. Tom McCallum was the lead investigator for
Frank Gable's defense. When the very came back, Frank didn't
want to come up. He didn't want to come he
was scared. I didn't want to come up, and here
the verdict. And I went down and talked to him
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for about half an hour, and I said, gather, Prank,
there's no way they can find you guilty. And that's
the way I felt. And so, with absolutely no physical
evidence connecting him to the scene of the crime, and
only the rigid testimony of several so called material witnesses,
Frank Gabele was convicted of the murder of Michael Frankie
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and sentenced to life without parole. They even asked for
the death penalty, which is to me, the final evil
here is that they, knowing that they had made up
the case against this man, but then after he was convicted,
try to kill him. And so begins Frank Gable's long
legal battle to prove his innocence. This case has been
(29:09):
controversial from the start, When Gabel was arrested for the murder,
he claimed he was set up. I believe that I
walked into a complicated drug ring and really don't know
how complicated it was until now. And you think maybe
that drug ring had something to do with Frankie's murder.
I believe so. Yes. He has filed multiple appeals. Today
the judge ruled the trial cordinate. Frank people filed a
(29:32):
handwritten habeas corpus petition in two thousand and seven. That
Latin term literally translates to produce the body. It's a
legal recourse where a person can report supposed unlawful imprisonment
and ask for the chance to have a judge determine
whether or not the detention was legal. It was truly
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Frank's last chance and would prove the beginning to an
uphill battle for his freedom. After reading Phil Stanford's columns,
Gable began to correspond with Phil. The letters were heartfelt
and personal. In them, Gable's mood wavered at times between
hope and despair. September seven, two thousand eleven. Feel glad
(30:15):
to hear from you. All is okay on this end?
Best prison can be? I guess it's been a little
crazy here. Guy got stabbed about fifty times hurt, He's
on life support. Prison is so full of violence. No
words can express how I hated in here. Phil. It's
been such a long road. Not much else really, just
(30:36):
trying the best I can to continue to deal with
this nightmare so overwhelming. At times, I just pray that
God sees fit to bring justice in the near future. Amen,
So tire Fell take care. While he was in prison,
Gable was moved around repeatedly. He got transferred to Kansas
(31:01):
to be near his sister who was ill and um
so that that explains the last one. But the the
transfers before that, I think some of them were just punitive.
I mean Kevin. Kevin believes he was transferred to the
particular prison in California just because it was so dangerous
and they would have been more than happy to have
him get killed. Things had a turning point when gables
(31:22):
plight caught the attention of a federal public defender, Nell Brown.
They continue to get things done. I just wish it
would be faster. Guess they don't understand that it's been
twenty two and a half years I've been locked up,
and that any chance to have a family is slipping away.
I always pictured myself with a wife, several kids, on
(31:43):
a ranch and joint fishing and hunting with my kids,
riding horses, etcetera. I've got nothing. At fifty two years
old in prison, wrongfully convicted. On October two thousand and fourteen,
Brown filed an amended version of Gable's original petition for
(32:05):
writ of habeas corpus, this time with a proclamation of innocence,
along with a one eighty nine page supporting legal brief.
It was an astronomical task. First of all, she and
her investigators contacted all the material witnesses and got them
to recant, to admit they made up their testimony. She
(32:27):
was using phone records. She put together an airtight alibi
for frank on the night of the murder at the
time of the murder. This could have been done before.
It was really a brilliant piece of investigation and argumentation.
The one thing that impressed me so much was in
one of the appendices of her report was a picture
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they had found in the state police evidence lockers of
Michael Frankie's white board, the white board he was using
with his staff on the night of the murderer. They
were having a meeting talking about the talk he was
going to be giving the next morning to the Legislative Committee.
And on the whiteboard the last entry was the a
shed the the fire in the shed was obviously going
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to be the last item on his speech. It was
the most important thing he was going to leave the
legislators with. And the a shed fire was oursin for
insurance purposes, which cost the state of Oregon well over
a million dollars. Yes, and it was final proof that, yes,
he wasn't investigating corruption. This is what the states had
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been fighting against so long, the idea that he could
possibly have been investigating corruption. Here was the proof of it. Finally,
photographic proof of it. Here's Nigel Jake Ques, Pulitzer Prize
winning reporter for the willamb A Week. I think the
Federal Public Defender's Office did an amazing job of tracking
down a disparate group of people and getting them to
(33:58):
tell something only closer for the truth than they told
in nineteen and you know that. It's it's it's very
heartening to see that Nel Brown in particular, but now
in her colleagues were willing to put that kind of time,
in those kind of resources into a guy that nobody
cared about. I mean, you know those few reporters who
(34:21):
are kind of obsessed with this case, and then a
small cotery of people cared about Frank Abel, but nobody
really cared about Frank Abel. And for them to invest
all that time and all that shoe leather into getting
those people too, we can't. It's a pretty amazing piece
of of work. Brown also brought up the confession of
(34:42):
Kraus being omitted from evidence, as well as natividad by
forbidding the defense from presenting the jury with evidence of
third party guilt, along with other glaring violations of gables
constitutional rights. Brown made the case that not only did
Frank Gabele not commit the murder, but he was comple
the innocent of the crime. For Phil Stanford, the petition
(35:03):
was an impressive presentation of the argument Frank Gable had
been arguing all along. I realized reading these letters from Gable,
he understood it. He'd been reading the case for years,
and he understood that, as he says in the letters here,
they knowingly set me up. They knowingly made up the
evidence against me, They knowingly obscured and confused the evidence
(35:27):
on my alibi. He understood it, and he was sitting there,
locked up in one of the worst prisons in the country,
life without parole, you know, really without much hope at
that point, sending me letters saying we need to investigate this,
we need to investigate that. It wasn't until the federal
(35:49):
Public Defender Nel Brown presented her brilliant study of the case,
the abs Corpus petition, to the court, and I had
a chance to read that that I must say, uh,
for the first time, I really understood the case. I mean,
it's an absolutely brilliant job, and the analysis is good.
(36:10):
Evidence is also brilliantly presented. He is quite innocent, and
here is the proof. Steve Jackson covered gables initial trial
for The Statesman Journal. Here's his take on Public Defender
Nell Brown's petition. You know, no, I talked to her
(36:32):
at one point, and she's admirable and that you know,
she went to bath for Frank and and did her job.
And that's the sort of you know, attorney you want
to have on your side. You know, we should all
get to have that sort of an attorney on our side.
On April eighteenth, two thousand, nineteen, US Magistrate Judge John
Acosta delivered his ruling, but just today a federal judge
(36:54):
ruled he must be released from custody unless the State
of Oregon decides to retry aim within ninety days. He
has filed multiple appeals. Today, the judge ruled the trial
cord messed up by not allowing evidence that showed another
person had actually admitted to the crime. What what struck
me most, of course, was the judges statement that, given
(37:16):
the evidence that was available then and new evidence that
had been brought forward, no reasonable juror would vote to
convict Frank Gable. Here's a reporter for the Portland's Tribune,
Jim Redden's thoughts. Why they didn't prosecute Johnny Krauss when
(37:38):
he made the confession even though he recandidate. You know,
the one confession he made had sufficient detail to convince
Acosta that you know, it should have been enter in evidence.
Why they decided not to prosecute him and then settled
on Gable. I have no idea, and I don't know
(37:59):
that we'll have to know that for Kevin, Frankie and
Phil Stamford. After nearly thirty years, news of the ruling
in Frank's favor was beyond emotional. Here's a voicemail Kevin
left me that night. Hi, Lauren, Kevin, Oh home run.
(38:20):
I haven't christ over killed. And that's the truth is.
I don't know what to say. Here's phil I got
an email from Jim Redden. He was the one who
had done the best job of keeping up with no
and and she had sent him an email saying, gable winds.
I mean, that's her way of doing it. She didn't
say we won. And it still didn't really hit me.
(38:44):
And at some point I forget just what it was.
It hit me and uh, I could feel my you know,
sort of tears squeezing out of my eyes. Um and
(39:04):
and and of course I talked together and uh and
he said, yeah, I cried like a baby, and I said, uh,
me too. After Judge a Costa's decision, Kevin received a
(39:26):
letter from Frank. He says, I can't express all the
emotions I feel. Me too. The ruling is awesome, but
as I told my reign, that's Rainey his wife been stabbed,
my thoughts being cut shot. I'm afraid I can't hold
a job in the free world. I'm a broken man,
(39:47):
and I'm willing to fight and overcome it. I'm still
in prison, still scared to believe it could finally be over.
They may block out, free state, they wrongfully convicted me,
and what to see if they'll appeal and they'll be
stuck in here for who knows how long. So tell
him getting dressed out to leave. I'll be uncertain. I'm
(40:09):
not able to believe this is truly over look to
see you all soon, Frank freedom after thirty years. On Friday,
nine year old Frank Gable will walk out of prison now.
Oregon's Department of Justice has ninety days to either release
(40:29):
Gable or retriumph. Frank Gable did walk out of prison
into the arms of his wife on June nineteen, but
the joy of Frank's newfound freedom was short lived. The
state of Oregon appealed the decision the next month. The
Oregon Department of Justice is appealing, saying it believes Gable
(40:51):
remains a danger to the public. Kevin Frankie thinks the
state is running out of options and excuses. The State's
not going to win the appeal. Marion County is not
going to retrain that they can drag this appeal out
for years and they don't have a case against him period.
They have no witnesses, they have no evidence, they have nothing,
(41:13):
and now we have an open case coming up. On
the final episode of Murder and Oregon, loose ends are tied.
A lot of people were never satisfied with Salt and
they're even less satisfied today and we present the pressing
(41:34):
issues that remain. There's a letter there is that I
knew your brother was killed because he knew too much
and he was stepping on the wrong toes to call
out the people who know who killed Michael Frankie. Murdering
(41:58):
Oregon is hosted by Auren Bright Pacheco and Phil Stanford.
Executive producers are Noel Brown, Lauren Bright Pacheco, and Phil Stanford.
Supervising producer and lead editor is Taylor Chocoygne. Sound designed
by Tristan McNeil, Story editing by Matt Riddle, Written by
Phil Stanford, Matt Riddle, and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Music written
and performed by the Diamond Street Players and mixed by
(42:21):
Taylor Chocoyne with music supervision by Noel Brown. Additional music
by Tristan McNeil. Archival elements courtesy of KGW in Portland, Oregon.
The station behind the podcast Urged to Kill Murder and
Oregon is a production of I Heart Radio
Murder and Oregon as a production of I Heart Radio.
For thirty years now, the murder of Michael Frankie has
cast a dark shadow over the state of Oregon and
its institutions. He was a good and decent man, a
former prosecutor and judge, hired just the year before to
(00:20):
serve as director of the state's corrections department, and he
was stabbed to death on the night of January sevent
outside the office building where he worked in Salem, known
as the Dome Building. Much of what happened that night
remains a mystery. Frank Gable, a twenty nine year old
petty thief and small time drug dealer, was arrested for
(00:43):
the murder about a year later. Journalist and author of
Phil Stanford has been investigating the Frankie murder for three decades.
It was not an accident. It was not a car
burglary gone dad. He was a public official who discovered
option in his own department heads We're going to rule.
He was about ready to demote or fire some of
(01:06):
his his top aides. He had already gotten rid of one,
a lawyer who had been working there for over a decade.
The night before he was to address the legislative committee
on this very subject. He was stabbed in the heart
in front of the building where he worked. It was
a cover up from the beginning. They couldn't afford to
even look at the people who might have done it,
(01:27):
so they selected a patsy, and they made up the
evidence against him, put him on trial, and got a conviction.
Those sons a bit. For more than thirty years, Gabel
has adamantly maintained his innocence, and to this day, much
about the Frankie murder investigation and Gabel's subsequent arrest still
(01:51):
remained shrouded in secrecy. But a few things do seem clear.
The investigation into Michael's death was more than a cover up.
The corruption Michael Frankie uncovered and the individuals tied to
that corruption, and possibly Mike's murder, has not been properly pursued,
(02:12):
which is why for the past ten episodes of Murder
and Oregon we've been asking the question who killed Michael Frankie.
I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is Murder and Oregon.
(02:46):
The morning of janu Kevin was working at his construction
company in Florida when he got the call and he
was already suspicious before that. Oh yeah, a couple of
weeks before where he'd had a phone conversation with Mike,
and Mike had told him that he had discovered an
organized criminal element in his department and he was going
(03:08):
to be cleaning house. And initially he's told by Dick
Peterson that Mike was shot, when in fact he was stabbed. Yeah,
Dick Peterson, deputy director of Oregon Corrections, tells Kevin that
his brother Mike has been shot. Here's Michael, Frankie's younger brother. Kevin,
what's going through my mind? I think it's probably what
(03:28):
goes for everybody's mind when you get a tragic event,
is that I knew in my heart that I would
get out here and somebody would tell me it's a
big mistake. It was somebody else. Mike's okay, he's over here.
The person up on the patio was somebody else. Just
(03:48):
my thinking and feeling was this overwhelming grief and sadness.
Kevin immediately flew to Oregon, as did his older brother Pat.
Remember seeing Pat, it looked like he just had the
weight of the world at his shoulders and we could
(04:12):
just hug each other and to All I said was
it's true. That was it. And then when Kevin gets
out to ore Agon, he's interviewed, initially by Detective Lauren Glover. Right, yeah,
I think it's that morning at the Dome building. Lauren
(04:32):
Glover was a state police officer who was one of
the principal investigators in the Frankie murder. I assume that
Glover asked the expected questions that you would ask in
a murder situation. Right, do Mike have any drug habits?
Mike had any drinking habits, They have any gambling habits? Uh?
Do you know if he was having affairs with anybody?
(04:55):
They tell you this, They tell you that, and I
said no. What he told me was that the uncovered
an organized criminal element and it kind of went over
his head. And we know this because years later we
got the officers notes is that his brother was running
into problems with his top staff. And then the Frankie
brothers went with the police to Mike's house to get
(05:19):
clothing for the funeral for Mike's body, and what they
saw there was pretty amazing. Here's Pat, the oldest Frankie brother.
We went out to his house, his wife and I
here her dad, my brother Kevin with the police to
pick up clothing for the funeral people. There was a
(05:40):
forty five caliber pistol in the bed that had been
under his pillow, and a twelve gage state radgun leaning
against the slanting glass door that opened that onto a deck.
And uh, the deck and the sidewalk down below were
littered with hundreds and Hendred's of spent twelve gays shot
gun shells. Even after doing the walk, practicing with the
(06:05):
twelve gage that isn't a normal activity. I don't think.
I don't think that's how I would I want to
spend my life sleeping with a pistol under my Not
only would it seem that Mike was concerned for his safety,
but the state's official narrative of the murder as a
car robbery gone bad just didn't make sense. Well, it
(06:27):
wasn't much of a robbery because he still had his wallet,
he still has his watch. What was missing was his briefcase,
and in that briefcase would have been floppy disks. That's
what we have to assume. Yes, there was also unusual
activity at the Dome building the day after his body
(06:50):
was found, which would have been a Saturday and in
the reported scene, a number I think it's twenty three
or something like that burned eggs of beauty pretty much
that had been gathered up over the weekend. There were
twenty three trash bags full of papers that were carried
out of somewhere, and I would suspect some of it
(07:13):
came out of his office and they were all shredded.
The Frankie family was assured the investigation was a top
priority and cautioned not to talk to the press, but
Kevin in particular, remained skeptical from day one. I didn't
believe that somebody was there stealing something out of Mike's
(07:36):
club compartment and killed him. The whole scenario, everything just
seemed absolutely wrong because of what I knew about my brother,
the fact that he would grab somebody who does who
in their right mind thinks that Mike gives a ship
about anything they're going to steal out of a state
car seriously. After the funeral, Kevin went back to Florida
(08:00):
and back to his business there, spending most of his
time trying to conduct a long distance investigation, which was
very difficult because he really didn't have any contacts back
in Salem. He was just calling blind in the corrections
department phone book, and then a witness came forward. Shortly
after Kevin got back to Florida State Police held a
(08:22):
press conference and said they had a witness. It was
a maintenance person, who it turned out was a janitor
named Wayne Huntsaker. He said he saw two people. He
turned because he heard something like a grunt sound or
a hurt sense, like somebody getting punched in the gut,
And he turned around and he saw two guys facing
(08:42):
each other. At that instant, one turned and ran this way,
and the other one went back into the dome building.
The two men, he described, one was taller than the other,
and then one turned around and ran from the dome
building across the big green field there towards the State Hospital.
(09:03):
So the other one turned around and walked back to
the dome building, he said leisurely at the time. But
what strikes me here is very odd is that the
one who turned and ran was noticeably taller than the
one who turned and walked back to the dome building.
Michael Frankie was about six three or six four, which
means that the guy who turned and ran he was
(09:26):
as tall as an NBA basketball player. It doesn't make
any sense. It doesn't fit. About a week after the murder,
the police held a press conference and announced they were
interested in talking with a man who had been seen
in the Dome Building the night of the murder. He
was seen in the Dome Building at six thirty, which
(09:48):
was about an hour after the building had been locked
to the public. He was wearing a dark suit and
the woman thought it was a pinstripe suit. He's quickly
became known as the Man and the pins Ripe Suit. Now.
The thought that there was a guy inside the building
and a guy outside the building is also interesting in
(10:09):
light of the fact that we know that the number
three in command under Mike's department, Dave Coullie, said that
he was afraid to go check Mike's office because he
was afraid he'd find him dead from a suicide. Correct,
that's what Callie said. Who's the guy in the pinstripe
(10:34):
suit and is stabbing him? The best thing? And I
think was planned that he was there was supposed to
be a suicide. Pinstripe suit was supposed to disarm him,
get him in his office, and either take him somewhere
and kill him. At home, or have him doing the
suicide here make it look like a suicide, and make
(10:54):
it look like a suicide. I don't know if they
knew that he always used the north portico door instead
the main entry door, because the pinstripe suit was seen
at the main entry door going back and forth and
not here. So if he came at here and the
objective was to kill him, and now he's getting loose
and you have to stop him, then the ship has
(11:15):
the fan. After months with no information, Kevin's back in
Florida and feeling desperate when he gets an unusual tip. Yeah,
a friend hands in the newspaper article about a psychic
who helped the local police and said, you might as
well try her. So Kevin gave her a call and
they got together. She said that they've got somebody in
custody right now. They think that he might have done it,
(11:41):
but he didn't do it, but he knows more than
he should know. His name's John Kay something called Glover.
And I asked him, I said, do you have somebody
in custody right now? He said, yeah, who snitched yet?
We got a leak in There's who told you at that?
(12:01):
And I said I went to a psyche and she
said that he has somebody in custody right now named
John Kay. He says it's c craft. One of the
most obvious things that Johnny Kraloss knew that he couldn't
have known unless he had been there, was the nature
of the Frankie's wounds. One stab mark to the left arm,
(12:25):
probably a defensive wound, end the fatal wound to the heart,
and Johnny cross I knew that it hadn't been released
to the public. But in addition to that, he described
the scene. He said Frankie had come up on him
when he was breaking into the car. He tried to
get away, he couldn't. Frankie was too strong. They struggled.
(12:45):
He had a knife, still trying to get away. He
started slashing at him, and then he stabbed him. The
wounden went out of him and he turned and ran
towards the old hospital, across the huge green lawn there
and around the green generator, which is exactly what Hunds
sacred the janitor the State cops first witness said he
(13:10):
saw that night Kevin and Mike's brother Pat Frankie would
visit Johnny Krauss in prison looking for answers. And I
went to the penitentiary with the Cross's lawyer, and I
had a series of questions written out on the three
but five cards that I showed Kraus through the glass.
I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to recorded
what I was asking and what he was responding to.
(13:33):
And I asked him about eight or ten questions and
he indicated that he didn't do it, but he knew
who did do it and if he'd been willing to
cooperate along those lines, Pat called Phil with a bombshell,
Krowse shared. He said, Pat, this goes to corrections. You're
onto something Pat told me. I put that in the column.
(14:03):
After Johnny Kraus's confession. He even took cops on a
ride to show them where they could find the bloody
clothes he ditched after the murder. During that ride, Kraus
also suggested a bit of a detour. The police took
him in the police car to show them where he
had buried some clothes that he had worn that night,
(14:24):
and as they were driving down Park Avenue, two blocks
from the Dome building, which is where Michael Frankie worked,
Kraus said, if you want to go see where the
knife was that killed Mike Frankie, go over to ninety
two Park Avenue, and that's what Dale Penn in the
car and to state cops and cross his attorney, and
they couldn't take two minutes out of their drive to
(14:46):
the penitentiary to stop by two Park Avenue just to
check him out. And that afternoon, the record shows he
came back and at a meeting with the open and
Sarah Moore, who was then the lead prosecutor on the case,
and said that he had been approached by two officials
(15:10):
and corrections offered ten thousand dollars killed Frankie, but had
backed out of it, and that someone else had done it.
So all this is going on behind the scenes, and
we don't know it until the records are released some
time later. But what we do know is that shortly
after that, Johnny Krauss was dropped as a suspect, and
(15:31):
in fact it eventually given immunity by the d a's
office on the condition that he not recant his recantation.
So it's that they didn't like his confession, they didn't
like the people his confession would ultimately lead to. That's
what it looks like for sure by now Kevin was
done taking orders from the folks behind the official investigation
(15:55):
and gives filled the green light to report on the
corruption he knew his brother was investigating. Phil does and
includes a copy of a police sketchy's tracked down. It's
of the man in the pinstripe suit. And then Governor
Neil Goldschmidt retaliates against both Phil and Kevin. That's what
set off gold Schmidt. Next thing I knew he was
(16:17):
holding the press conference. He's saying, issue after issue is
in the paper, and nobody has ever stopped to say,
where does this garbage come from. You're impugning the character
of the Oregon State Police, which is an independent investigation.
He held another press conference and called it VS. After that,
(16:38):
gold Schmidt's office and the Prosecutor Dale Penn started attacking Kevin,
saying there is no evidence at all that members of
the Frankie family said anything about this organized criminal element
in their initial interviews with the State Copps, which of
course was not true. Even as the official investigation pushed
(16:59):
the narrative of of a car burglary gone bad, there
was another development that pointed in a very different direction.
An inmate named Conrad Garcia came forward with shocking allegations.
About six months after Michael Frankie has murdered. He goes
to his counselor in prison and tells the counselor that
(17:21):
he knows something about the murder. He says he was
approached by Tim Natividad to do the murder and he
knows that Scott McAllister, the prison lawyer, arranged it is
their record of that. I pulled up the report by Lawrence,
Conrad's counselor, and it says this is what the task
(17:43):
force wrote from his report. Lawrence was interviewing and M
Garcia concerning institutional matter. During the conversation, Garcia told Laurance Mr.
Frankie was killed by Timothy David Natividad. This was arranged
by Scott McAllister, so that's information they had. Conrad stated
(18:05):
that tim Natividad killed Mike Frankie and that Scott McAllister
had put him up to it, and he told that
to his counselor and John Lawrence gave that information into
the State Police via the tip lines and the tip sheets.
To the State Police investigators regarding Mike's murder, and we
(18:31):
spoke to two women extremely involved and familiar with Timothy Natividad,
also known as Rooster, and both believed he was violent, volatile,
and very capable of murder. Here's Carrie Rothschild who was
barely a teen when she was trafficked by her mother
to Natividad, a drug dealer. Carrie was even with Natividad
(18:53):
when another murder was committed. There were some gunshots and
the door opened and somebody in the other room had
shot one of the people that he was with and
killed him. And he had them over his shoulder and
(19:15):
I've got I mean, I've had nightmares about this day forever.
But um, he's carrying him, you know. And then he
takes them out side and put some in a trunk
of a car. And I went with him in the
van and I helped him, unfortunately clean up the blood
(19:38):
because it was on him. And he looked at me
and said, will never ever speak of this again? And
I was so scared. Carrie's mother, Melody, was muling large
amounts of drugs into the prison with the obvious protection
and knowledge of people in power. He's moving a lot
(20:01):
of drugs into the joint. She's going into visit three
times a day, seven days a week, which is unheard of.
You've got to have some sort of connection there to
get in that many visits. You're not allowed that many
that often unless your name doesn't go on the visitation records,
(20:21):
So you must have known somebody that could get you
in with that documenting your visit. Carrie recalls corrections guards
and officials coming to her house to visit her mother, Melody,
who was desperate to get her fourth husband, Conrad Garcia,
out of prison. When not tivid I would come to
(20:43):
our house. Usually he would come alone, and he came
to our house on a couple of different occasions with
different people. One time he came with who I believe
is Scott McAllister, and then the other time he came
with someone who I believe is the guard from the prison.
(21:03):
They pulled up in government vehicles and I only know
that now from working in the field of federal law.
Liz god Love was Natividad's living girlfriend, gave birth to
his son, and was often on the receiving end of
his violent mood swings. Tim got extremely dangerous, holding knives
(21:25):
to my throat and choking me out, and like the
police weren't. Really there's nothing they could do. I filed
restraining orders. Tim would get locked up for the day
and get out. It would be worse, and she says
Natividad became increasingly unhinged after Michael Frankie's murder. It was
(21:46):
really super paranoid, angry, sad, mad. All the emotions were
like a lot of crying and shaking and not letting
me out of his side, not letting me go to
the store, or not letting me have family over keeping
the blind shut and saying don't let anybody in, do
not answer the door, and if I'm here, I'm not here,
(22:10):
you know, don't ever let anybody know I'm here. He
wanted to move to Bend in my house in those
two weeks He's telling me all this. He wanted to
go to Hawaii, so he had all these big plans
right away. Two weeks after Mike's murder, Liz would shoot
Tim to death in self defense. Then months later she
(22:33):
would see the police drawing of the man in the
pinstripe suit, the composite drawing that came out in the
newspaper and on the news. Looked to me and my
sister Karen, it looked like Tim, do you remember what
you found and what you said when you saw Really
we were shocked and said, oh my god. So she
went to the police as I said, you guys, I
(22:53):
think Tim killed Michael. Frankin needs you to look into it.
Tim always carried an knife. Tim had a huge knife collection.
Tim was violent. Tim told me he killed somebody, and
I think it's Michael. Look at this composite drawing. And
they laughed and said, you can't convict a dead man.
(23:13):
There's nothing we can do here. And Tim Natividad is
never pursued as a suspect. No, despite what Conrad Garcia
told his counselor that he had been approached by Natividad
to do the murder and that he thought that Scott
McAllister was behind it, they never really pursued that. No,
(23:37):
they never did. Why do you think one obvious possibilities
They couldn't have investigated him without investigating McAllister, and they
obviously did not want to investigate McAllister. And so it
was about this time the investigation started zeroing in on
small time drug dealer named Frank Gable, just completely out
of them blue. They had no physical evidence knocking him
(24:00):
with the crime, and how did they build their case
around him? So what they did was to talk to
a motley collection of X cons and jail birds who
had serious sentences, in some cases hanging over their heads
and get them to make up stories about Gable. They
used lie detective tests, polygraphs to shape the testimony and
(24:21):
just about every case. I got the phone call at
home on April ninth, the morning of April night, and
it was Captain Dennis O'Donnell on the line. He stated
his purpose for the call was to inform me that
they had indicted trying Gable for the murder of Mike.
(24:43):
And I said, you gotta be shipping me. I said,
why are you calling me? Because I was expected that
if there was a call, that would be calling from
the d a's office. And he said, we flipped a
coin and I lost. Convinced there was more to his
brother's murder, Kevin picked up and moved to Oregon. He
(25:07):
wasn't exactly welcomed. The very first night that I was
in Oregon, I got my tire slashed. Then I got
a note saying welcome to Oregon, I go home, placed
on the windshield. The Salem and State police would try
to make his life a living hell, and they'd go
beyond verbal harassment. It's not verbal when there's a gun
(25:29):
pointing in your temple. And that happened several on several occasions,
one in particular that nearly turned deadly. I sat there
wondering if I was going to see the windshield blow
out before my brain said it to. All kinds of
weird things were coming into my head now. I kept
(25:50):
watching the cops in my rear view mirror, and because
they had the light shining in the outside mirror here
and I could see about five cops back there. In
the meantime, Gable's trial said Yeah, the lawyer assigned to
Gabel's case, Bob Aabel, was hardly capable of handling such
a big, important, complex case. He was on the skids
(26:13):
himself as a lawyer, and he was a heavy drinker. Besides.
In fact, his own defense team was so concerned that
he wasn't prepared for Gabel's trial that they approached the
judge at the time with a formal letter asking to
postpone the trial. They sent Judge West a letter saying
(26:34):
just that, and nothing came up. But the trial went forward.
Here's local television reporter Eric Mason. I think all of
us realized there was nothing really the connected Frank Gabele
to this crime, and that the people who had told
the story that and had become informants and stitches against
(26:56):
Frank Gabele, they were all professional layers. They were all
people who had made serious, big deals before in their
lives with prosecutors and understood the system in the way
it worked. Jody and Shorty Harden were supposedly the state's
star witnesses. They're only eyewitnesses after they got their stories straight.
(27:19):
They claimed to have been in a car at the
Dome Building on the night of the murder and to
have seen the murder, but their testimony contradicted the only
reliable witness the state had on the stand, Hansacker. Right, Hansaker,
who saw the two men in front of the Dome Building,
would have also seen the car that Jody and Shorty
(27:40):
were in, but there was no car there. And in
the trial this this is a pretty good example of
how incompetent able was. He didn't even try to point
this contradiction out, and the jury was never told about
Johnny Krauss's confession and Tim Nativotide's name was never even mentioned. No,
(28:01):
the Drey had no idea that someone else had confessed
to the crime. Tom McCallum was the lead investigator for
Frank Gable's defense. When the very came back, Frank didn't
want to come up. He didn't want to come he
was scared. I didn't want to come up, and here
the verdict. And I went down and talked to him
(28:22):
for about half an hour, and I said, gather, Prank,
there's no way they can find you guilty. And that's
the way I felt. And so, with absolutely no physical
evidence connecting him to the scene of the crime, and
only the rigid testimony of several so called material witnesses,
Frank Gabele was convicted of the murder of Michael Frankie
(28:45):
and sentenced to life without parole. They even asked for
the death penalty, which is to me, the final evil
here is that they, knowing that they had made up
the case against this man, but then after he was convicted,
try to kill him. And so begins Frank Gable's long
legal battle to prove his innocence. This case has been
(29:09):
controversial from the start, When Gabel was arrested for the murder,
he claimed he was set up. I believe that I
walked into a complicated drug ring and really don't know
how complicated it was until now. And you think maybe
that drug ring had something to do with Frankie's murder.
I believe so. Yes. He has filed multiple appeals. Today
the judge ruled the trial cordinate. Frank people filed a
(29:32):
handwritten habeas corpus petition in two thousand and seven. That
Latin term literally translates to produce the body. It's a
legal recourse where a person can report supposed unlawful imprisonment
and ask for the chance to have a judge determine
whether or not the detention was legal. It was truly
(29:53):
Frank's last chance and would prove the beginning to an
uphill battle for his freedom. After reading Phil Stanford's columns,
Gable began to correspond with Phil. The letters were heartfelt
and personal. In them, Gable's mood wavered at times between
hope and despair. September seven, two thousand eleven. Feel glad
(30:15):
to hear from you. All is okay on this end?
Best prison can be? I guess it's been a little
crazy here. Guy got stabbed about fifty times hurt, He's
on life support. Prison is so full of violence. No
words can express how I hated in here. Phil. It's
been such a long road. Not much else really, just
(30:36):
trying the best I can to continue to deal with
this nightmare so overwhelming. At times, I just pray that
God sees fit to bring justice in the near future. Amen,
So tire Fell take care. While he was in prison,
Gable was moved around repeatedly. He got transferred to Kansas
(31:01):
to be near his sister who was ill and um
so that that explains the last one. But the the
transfers before that, I think some of them were just punitive.
I mean Kevin. Kevin believes he was transferred to the
particular prison in California just because it was so dangerous
and they would have been more than happy to have
him get killed. Things had a turning point when gables
(31:22):
plight caught the attention of a federal public defender, Nell Brown.
They continue to get things done. I just wish it
would be faster. Guess they don't understand that it's been
twenty two and a half years I've been locked up,
and that any chance to have a family is slipping away.
I always pictured myself with a wife, several kids, on
(31:43):
a ranch and joint fishing and hunting with my kids,
riding horses, etcetera. I've got nothing. At fifty two years
old in prison, wrongfully convicted. On October two thousand and fourteen,
Brown filed an amended version of Gable's original petition for
(32:05):
writ of habeas corpus, this time with a proclamation of innocence,
along with a one eighty nine page supporting legal brief.
It was an astronomical task. First of all, she and
her investigators contacted all the material witnesses and got them
to recant, to admit they made up their testimony. She
(32:27):
was using phone records. She put together an airtight alibi
for frank on the night of the murder at the
time of the murder. This could have been done before.
It was really a brilliant piece of investigation and argumentation.
The one thing that impressed me so much was in
one of the appendices of her report was a picture
(32:51):
they had found in the state police evidence lockers of
Michael Frankie's white board, the white board he was using
with his staff on the night of the murderer. They
were having a meeting talking about the talk he was
going to be giving the next morning to the Legislative Committee.
And on the whiteboard the last entry was the a
shed the the fire in the shed was obviously going
(33:12):
to be the last item on his speech. It was
the most important thing he was going to leave the
legislators with. And the a shed fire was oursin for
insurance purposes, which cost the state of Oregon well over
a million dollars. Yes, and it was final proof that, yes,
he wasn't investigating corruption. This is what the states had
(33:33):
been fighting against so long, the idea that he could
possibly have been investigating corruption. Here was the proof of it. Finally,
photographic proof of it. Here's Nigel Jake Ques, Pulitzer Prize
winning reporter for the willamb A Week. I think the
Federal Public Defender's Office did an amazing job of tracking
down a disparate group of people and getting them to
(33:58):
tell something only closer for the truth than they told
in nineteen and you know that. It's it's it's very
heartening to see that Nel Brown in particular, but now
in her colleagues were willing to put that kind of time,
in those kind of resources into a guy that nobody
cared about. I mean, you know those few reporters who
(34:21):
are kind of obsessed with this case, and then a
small cotery of people cared about Frank Abel, but nobody
really cared about Frank Abel. And for them to invest
all that time and all that shoe leather into getting
those people too, we can't. It's a pretty amazing piece
of of work. Brown also brought up the confession of
(34:42):
Kraus being omitted from evidence, as well as natividad by
forbidding the defense from presenting the jury with evidence of
third party guilt, along with other glaring violations of gables
constitutional rights. Brown made the case that not only did
Frank Gabele not commit the murder, but he was comple
the innocent of the crime. For Phil Stanford, the petition
(35:03):
was an impressive presentation of the argument Frank Gable had
been arguing all along. I realized reading these letters from Gable,
he understood it. He'd been reading the case for years,
and he understood that, as he says in the letters here,
they knowingly set me up. They knowingly made up the
evidence against me, They knowingly obscured and confused the evidence
(35:27):
on my alibi. He understood it, and he was sitting there,
locked up in one of the worst prisons in the country,
life without parole, you know, really without much hope at
that point, sending me letters saying we need to investigate this,
we need to investigate that. It wasn't until the federal
(35:49):
Public Defender Nel Brown presented her brilliant study of the case,
the abs Corpus petition, to the court, and I had
a chance to read that that I must say, uh,
for the first time, I really understood the case. I mean,
it's an absolutely brilliant job, and the analysis is good.
(36:10):
Evidence is also brilliantly presented. He is quite innocent, and
here is the proof. Steve Jackson covered gables initial trial
for The Statesman Journal. Here's his take on Public Defender
Nell Brown's petition. You know, no, I talked to her
(36:32):
at one point, and she's admirable and that you know,
she went to bath for Frank and and did her job.
And that's the sort of you know, attorney you want
to have on your side. You know, we should all
get to have that sort of an attorney on our side.
On April eighteenth, two thousand, nineteen, US Magistrate Judge John
Acosta delivered his ruling, but just today a federal judge
(36:54):
ruled he must be released from custody unless the State
of Oregon decides to retry aim within ninety days. He
has filed multiple appeals. Today, the judge ruled the trial
cord messed up by not allowing evidence that showed another
person had actually admitted to the crime. What what struck
me most, of course, was the judges statement that, given
(37:16):
the evidence that was available then and new evidence that
had been brought forward, no reasonable juror would vote to
convict Frank Gable. Here's a reporter for the Portland's Tribune,
Jim Redden's thoughts. Why they didn't prosecute Johnny Krauss when
(37:38):
he made the confession even though he recandidate. You know,
the one confession he made had sufficient detail to convince
Acosta that you know, it should have been enter in evidence.
Why they decided not to prosecute him and then settled
on Gable. I have no idea, and I don't know
(37:59):
that we'll have to know that for Kevin, Frankie and
Phil Stamford. After nearly thirty years, news of the ruling
in Frank's favor was beyond emotional. Here's a voicemail Kevin
left me that night. Hi, Lauren, Kevin, Oh home run.
(38:20):
I haven't christ over killed. And that's the truth is.
I don't know what to say. Here's phil I got
an email from Jim Redden. He was the one who
had done the best job of keeping up with no
and and she had sent him an email saying, gable winds.
I mean, that's her way of doing it. She didn't
say we won. And it still didn't really hit me.
(38:44):
And at some point I forget just what it was.
It hit me and uh, I could feel my you know,
sort of tears squeezing out of my eyes. Um and
(39:04):
and and of course I talked together and uh and
he said, yeah, I cried like a baby, and I said, uh,
me too. After Judge a Costa's decision, Kevin received a
(39:26):
letter from Frank. He says, I can't express all the
emotions I feel. Me too. The ruling is awesome, but
as I told my reign, that's Rainey his wife been stabbed,
my thoughts being cut shot. I'm afraid I can't hold
a job in the free world. I'm a broken man,
(39:47):
and I'm willing to fight and overcome it. I'm still
in prison, still scared to believe it could finally be over.
They may block out, free state, they wrongfully convicted me,
and what to see if they'll appeal and they'll be
stuck in here for who knows how long. So tell
him getting dressed out to leave. I'll be uncertain. I'm
(40:09):
not able to believe this is truly over look to
see you all soon, Frank freedom after thirty years. On Friday,
nine year old Frank Gable will walk out of prison now.
Oregon's Department of Justice has ninety days to either release
(40:29):
Gable or retriumph. Frank Gable did walk out of prison
into the arms of his wife on June nineteen, but
the joy of Frank's newfound freedom was short lived. The
state of Oregon appealed the decision the next month. The
Oregon Department of Justice is appealing, saying it believes Gable
(40:51):
remains a danger to the public. Kevin Frankie thinks the
state is running out of options and excuses. The State's
not going to win the appeal. Marion County is not
going to retrain that they can drag this appeal out
for years and they don't have a case against him period.
They have no witnesses, they have no evidence, they have nothing,
(41:13):
and now we have an open case coming up. On
the final episode of Murder and Oregon, loose ends are tied.
A lot of people were never satisfied with Salt and
they're even less satisfied today and we present the pressing
(41:34):
issues that remain. There's a letter there is that I
knew your brother was killed because he knew too much
and he was stepping on the wrong toes to call
out the people who know who killed Michael Frankie. Murdering
(41:58):
Oregon is hosted by Auren Bright Pacheco and Phil Stanford.
Executive producers are Noel Brown, Lauren Bright Pacheco, and Phil Stanford.
Supervising producer and lead editor is Taylor Chocoygne. Sound designed
by Tristan McNeil, Story editing by Matt Riddle, Written by
Phil Stanford, Matt Riddle, and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Music written
and performed by the Diamond Street Players and mixed by
(42:21):
Taylor Chocoyne with music supervision by Noel Brown. Additional music
by Tristan McNeil. Archival elements courtesy of KGW in Portland, Oregon.
The station behind the podcast Urged to Kill Murder and
Oregon is a production of I Heart Radio
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