Oregonian,
The (
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Author: PHIL MANZANO
- of the Oregonian Staff
This could be a pivotal
week in the investigation into the stabbing death of Michael Francke,
which has gone unsolved for nearly 15 months.
The question of who
killed the corrections director has hung over
A special grand jury
looking into the killing to meet as the date nears for the release of a
Marion County District
Attorney Dale Penn, who would prosecute anyone accused in the case, would say
only that the homicide is still under investigation.
Francke, 42, was
stabbed to death Jan. 17, 1989, outside the Corrections Department
headquarters, which is on the
According to some
witnesses, the grand jury has asked questions about the
Investigators have been
intensely interested in Gable, asking about his friends and associates, at
least since his arrest in September for assaulting his wife, Janyne.
Mike Keerins,
who is being held in the Marion County Jail, has said that Gable told him that
Gable stabbed Francke
during an attempted car burglary. Another
Harden said authorities
have a pretty good case against someone, but he wouldn't say who.
Gable broke his silence
on the case in February and denied any involvement in or knowledge about the Francke
murder. He claims he is the target of a rumor campaign by
``If they charge me with
this case, then they got to worry because they've got a killer running free,''
Gable said in a Feb. 12 interview with The Oregonian.
Penn has refused to
comment on whether investigators have questioned Gable, if he is a suspect or
if he is someone with knowledge about the murder.
But based on questions
posed by investigators, Gable thinks he will be indicted in the case.
They've ``got me scared
to death thinking I'm going to get roasted for a murder I didn't commit,''
Gable said in the Feb. 12 interview.
Francke's older brother, Patrick, said last week that he thinks Gable
will be indicted. Patrick Francke has been monitoring the case closely from his home
in
``I just have a gut
feeling that Frank Gable is in for the duration,'' Patrick Francke said.
But he also added that
he thinks his brother was killed as a result of a ``hit'' and not an act of
random violence that occurred during a crime.
Francke died from
a single stab wound to his heart and suffered other wounds, which officials
have not disclosed. He was killed about
About
The situation concerned
them enough to make them try to reach him on his pager, but they got no answer.
Later, two officials unsuccessfully searched the building.
About
Francke was lying
by a side door inside a recessed porch on the north side of the main
In the days following Francke's
murder, Penn said the two most likely motives for the murder were: that Francke was
the victim of a ``random killing'' while interrupting a burglary of his car or
a robbery or that someone killed him out of revenge for something he did in his
corrections career.
But questions raised by Francke's family and in the media suggested that he was
killed because of corruption within the department.
His younger brother,
Kevin, of Port Charlotte, Fla., said Michael Francke told him about a month
before he was killed that he was preparing to uncover an ``organized criminal
element'' in Oregon prisons.
Those questions led to
13 investigations, financial audits and studies of various areas of the
Corrections Department, some of which are still under way.
In September,
Goldschmidt appointed John C. Warden, a retired
Warden, aided by a team
of six retired FBI agents and a retired
He did find, however,
reasonable grounds to believe that some corrections employees are involved in
``significant illegal activities.'' Although he found no evidence of any
organized sinister conspiracy, he turned over the names of 15 employees to Francke's
successor, Fred B. Pearce, for further investigation and 20 mainly
administrative recommendations to improve the department.
A five-member
Penn has said that
investigators have yet to discover any evidence linking Francke's death to corruption.
As the one-year mark neared in the unsolved murder, Penn said it would be
highly unlikely that official department corruption or personal relationships
would be motives in the murder. He added that it was also unlikely that the
murder could be rooted in New Mexico, where Francke was a prosecutor, judge
and corrections chief before coming to Oregon in May 1987.
The special grand jury
was formed in August and met off and on until early December. It recessed for
about three months and reconvened March 19. A grand jury hears testimony and
receives evidence in secret. The panel decides whether there is enough evidence
to issue an indictment in a crime.