Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)

January 19, 1989

CORRECTIONS DIRECTOR SLAIN

Author: Oregonian Staff writers ALAN K. OTA, SARAH B. AMES, PHIL MANZANO and
SURA RUBENSTEIN, and correspondent CHERYL MARTINIS contributed to this report.

Dateline: SALEM

Summary: Michael Francke is found dead near his office building, and authorities have not turned up a suspect or weapon

Michael Francke, Oregon's soft-spoken Corrections Department director, was found dead early Wednesday outside his agency's headquarters office. He had been stabbed in the heart.

Dale Penn, Marion County district attorney, said Francke's body was found by a security guard. The body was in a pool of blood on a patio not far from Franke's car, which was parked in front of the Corrections Department's domed office building. Franke was clad in a coat and tie and his trademark, a well-worn pair of cowboy boots.

An around-the-clock Oregon State Police investigation, involving about 15 investigators, had turned up neither a suspect nor a murder weapon, Penn said. He described the crime as very simplistic, with relatively few clues gleaned at the scene.

``It's a tough case. There are so many ways it could go,'' Penn said. ``It's not something that will be solved tonight or tomorrow.''

Francke was appointed to head Oregon's overburdened prison system by Gov. Neil Goldschmidt on May 1, 1987. Francke had been overseeing an ambitious construction plan that backers said they hoped would add more than 1,000 prison beds in the next several years. He had been head of corrections in New Mexico from 1983-87.

Penn said Francke had been assaulted outside the building and that he had died between 6 p.m. and midnight Tuesday.

A department staff meeting ended about 6 p.m., and Francke and some other workers stayed to work in their offices. Sometime later, Penn said, employees became concerned about his whereabouts but did not find his body, which was located on a porch to one side of the portico at the building's main entrance.

A security guard who found the body was on routine patrol, and police were notified at 12:45 a.m.

Penn said in an interview Wednesday night that the killing may have been inspired by one of two ``primary motives'': robbery or revenge connected with Francke's work as a corrections official in Oregon and New Mexico. A large number of leads were being pursued, he said.

Authorities, including Penn, gave few details -- whether any struggle was involved or whether any criminal activity was evident around Francke's rented car, a white 1987 Pontiac Bonneville.

Dr. Larry Lewman, state medical examiner, would say only that the death was a homicide caused by ``a stab wound to the heart.''

``There are other injuries, the details of which will not be released at the request of the district attorney's office,'' a statement from Lewman's office said.

``Our facts right now are -- we just don't have any,'' said Lt. Col. R.B. Madsen, deputy superintendent of the Oregon State Police. ``We've got a lot of interviews to do. We don't have a suspect at this time.''

Francke, 42, advocated a multipronged approach to attacking crime. ``You could double or triple the (prison) operating budgets, and it won't stop crime,'' he said in May 1988.

However, faced by a glut of inmates and a building program pressed by the governor, much of Francke's time was spend shepherding a multimillion-dollar prison construction program.

The program involves the construction of three minimum-security prisons, expansion of the medium-security Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution and proposals to build more medium-security cells, among other steps.

The Corrections Department headquarters at 2575 Center St. N.E., commonly called the dome building, and the area around it was combed by investigators. Authorities cordoned off a large grassy area around the building, which is across from the Oregon State Hospital for the mentally ill.

All of the hospital's patients were accounted for Tuesday night, said spokeswoman Peggy Sand.

Former Rep. Chuck Sides, a Salem Republican who was a good friend of Francke's, said Francke kept a .38-caliber revolver in his car's glove compartment.

``He had a revolver in his car, but other than that, I never saw him take that many precautions, look around the corner,'' Sides said. ``He just charged ahead.''

Francke had received death threats, Sides said, specifically remembering one unsigned letter Francke had shown him last fall. He could remember no details of that letter but said Francke shrugged it off with a joke about which legislator might have sent it.

``Michael was getting death threats on a regular basis,'' Sides said. ``It was part of the job, almost.''

Sides also said it was not unusual for Francke to work alone at the office past midnight.

The meeting Francke held Tuesday was a weekly one of his top administrators and involved the heads of the department's five divisions: Richard S. Peterson, Elyse Clawson, Dave Caulley, Jan Curry and Fred Nichols. (Peterson, chief of the institutions division, was appointed Wednesday by Goldschmidt as interim corrections director.)

The meeting continued through at least 6 p.m. The administrators, among the last people to see Francke alive, have been told not to discuss the meeting or even to reveal the time it ended, Peterson said.

The corrections building is owned by the Mental Health Division.

The division is responsible for security and monitors patrols of the grounds from its communications center at the hospital.

When enough staff members are on duty, they patrol not only the hospital grounds but also the dome building area. It was unclear how often the area was patrolled Tuesday night.

Goldschmidt, in a morning news conference, called Francke's death a ``great loss.''

``I will miss his energy and intelligence,'' Goldschmidt said. ``But most of all I will miss his optimism, his belief that problems created by human beings can be solved by human beings.''

Many Corrections employees learned of Francke's death upon arriving at work, and some broke into tears. One man cursed and wiped away his tears, and a woman, who drove up to the entrance, was distraught. Another employee got in her car and left.

A native of Kansas City, Mo., Francke graduated from New Mexico Highlands University in 1968, and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1971. A U.S. Navy veteran, he served in New Mexico as an assistant and deputy attorney general and as a judge before being appointed corrections secretary for New Mexico in 1983, three years after prison riots left 33 inmates dead.

The 6-foot-3, 205-pound Francke was widely respected in corrections circles and was known as a soft-spoken man who was open to exploring a number of options toward solving society's crime problems.

He once said, ``Our resources and energies need to be plugged in with kids, real young kids,'' as an important preventative measure.

``Don't buy prisons,'' he said. ``You can't afford them, and they don't work.''

The Oregon prison system had faced desperate overcrowding in the last few months. On Wednesday, the state prisons and work camps held 4,951 inmates crammed into buildings originally designed for 2,800, and 156 inmates were being held in rented cells in Washington state prisons.

Francke had taken heavy criticism recently from legislators for cost overruns and delays in the state's prison construction program. Legislators also were growing increasingly frustrated with the rising inmate populations and the overcrowding that caused.

Francke had warned that the overcrowding might spark prison riots, but no major outbreaks of violence have been reported recently.

In a recent interview, he noted that the inmates were growing increasingly restive and that for the first time, they had started yelling at him when he walked into some of the temporary dorms.

Penn and *Emil Brandaw, Oregon State Police superintendent, said they knew of no specific threats made against Francke recently. Goldschmidt said Francke had never told him he was worried about his own safety.

Francke is survived by his wife, Bingta; their son, 1-year-old Trey; and two children from his first marriage, Marlo, 20, a University of Texas student, and Joel, 15, who lives with his mother in Albuquerque, N.M. Other survivors include his parents, Ed and Helen Francke of Prairie Village, Kan.; two brothers, Patrick of Lenexa, Kan., and Kevin of Murdock, Fla., and sister, Ann Francke of Prairie Village.

Bingta Francke had been visiting her mother in Fresno, Calif., for a week and learned of her husband's death Wednesday morning.

She had no comment on her arrival in Oregon.

No funeral date had been set.

Oregon inmates, who are allowed to own televisions and radios, probably heard the news of Francke's death early in the morning.

State officials reported no disturbances at any of the state institutions and said that the state had planned no lock-downs, in which inmates are confined to their cells.

Brandaw said there were no plans to increase security for other state officials.

Francke was the first ranking Oregon official to be slain since Holly Holcomb, Oregon State Police superintendent, was gunned down outside state police headquarters in 1975. Robert Wampler, a disgruntled former state trooper, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1984.

Anyone with information in the Francke case may call the Oregon State Police's toll-free line, 1-800-452-7888.